Martin Custom Shop D-18 1937 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar, Stage 1 Aging w/Case

Encapsulating so much of what makes the name a classic, the Martin Custom Shop D-18 1937 delivers a fully-fledged acoustic experience to truly celebrate. Joining together many of Martin’s outstanding materials and features, this Custom Shop acoustic is a dream for Martin fans and acoustic guitar fans universally. We here at Russo Music proudly bear our Martin Custom Shop Expert status and are delighted to share such fine acoustics such as this D-18.

The Martin Custom Shop D-18 1937 incorporates qualities from Martin’s Authentic Series while retaining the spirit of the brand’s 1937 models that established generational standards for acoustic guitar making. Starting out with an Adirondack spruce top, the body of this guitar features a clear vintage gloss finish with a Martin Stage 1 Aging toner that imparts a well-worn aesthetic, implying a long lineage of play and care and putting on fine display the intricacies of the Adirondack grain. The body of this Custom Shop is completed with genuine mahogany back and sides to form the Martin Authentic D-14 Fret body shape. Hide glue construction brings these rich materials together, resulting in a much more careful process of assembly that demands precision while producing an exceptional instrument such as this. Brown Tortoise pattern binding appears across the top of this acoustic while a multi-stripe top inlay lines its perimeter and an Old Style 18 multi-stripe rosette accompanies.

A genuine mahogany neck joins the equation in Authentic 1937 profile with a Standard taper. The Dovetail neck joint construction compounds on the playability of this neck at its highest registers and completes the basis of this Custom Shop’s comfortable body assembly. An ebony fingerboard matches with this genuine mahogany and is adorned with twenty frets while an array of abalone Old Style 18 fret inlays line the ebony for a refined visual sum.

The unique playability of this Custom Shop is contributed to by a forward-shifted X Brace bracing pattern, designed to account for this Martin’s 25.4” scale length. Scalloped Adirondack spruce braces line the Adirondack spruce top for a keen character of tonality and outstanding projection. Playability across this Custom Shop Martin is only enhanced by a number of fine appointments to bring the entire guitar to a satisfying conclusion. Waverly Nickel Open Back tuning machines line the Solid-shaped headstock featuring a 1937 taper and East Indian rosewood headplate for smooth stringing and tonal stability. A bone nut measuring 1.75” lands at this end of the scale to solidify strings through to the headstock and contribute to a strong sense of intonation. A 1930 Style Belly ebony bridge appears at the opposite end of the scale length with a glue-in bone Long Saddle measuring at a radius of 16”. This Martin Custom Shop travels with a hardshell case for safety and security.

The luthiers at Martin’s Custom Shop have certainly outdone themselves with this D-18 model. With so much Martin musicality in a refined instrument, the legacy of Martin Guitar earns itself a new chapter.