Historic Hardware:
19th & 20th Century Martins
We take a look back at the pioneering craftsmanship of Martin’s first 100 years – from the company’s earliest known guitar of 1834 up to the groundbreaking arrival of the classic American 14-fret Dreadnought in 1934 – with Martin & Co’s museum and archives specialist Jason Ahner
The X-braced, steel-string, 14-fret neck, large-bodied American flat-top is an icon of modern times. It is the people’s guitar – the genre-spanning voice of generations. But it took many years of experimentation and ingenuity before Martin finally evolved the instrument in the late 1920s and 30s into what many consider to be the pinnacle of acoustic guitar building. For that reason, the basic design hasn’t changed much since then. Indeed, there has long been a common emphasis on looking back to the pre-war period of production as a benchmark for quality.
The story of Martin guitars begins in 1796 with the birth of company founder Christian Frederick Martin Sr in Markneukirchen, Germany. Around this time, the instrument as we know it today with six single strings was just becoming established in Europe as luthiers increasingly shifted away from building the earlier-style double course-stringed baroque guitars during the latter half of the 18th century.
“When CF Martin Sr was born, the six-string guitar was a rather new development,” CF Martin & Co’s museum and archives specialist, Jason Ahner, tells us. “At some point in the 1700s, they figured the guitar should have six strings and the idea eventually stuck.
“CF Sr’s grandfather and greatgrandfather were violin builders. We don’t know why his father never got into that, but he was a cabinet maker and part of the cabinet maker’s guild. He also built guitars and he saw that his son had an interest in building guitars, so he approached the violin makers to see if Christian could apprentice under them, but they declined saying they thought the guitar was a passing fad. That’s when his father arranged the apprenticeship with [renowned Viennese guitar builder] Johann Stauffer. As the story goes, CF Martin Sr travelled to Vienna to get his formal apprenticeship under Stauffer when he was 15 years old. He eventually became the foreman of Stauffer’s shop.”
While in Vienna, CF Martin Sr married singer and harp teacher Ottilie Kuhle, and the pair relocated to Germany soon after their first child, Christian Frederick Martin Jr, arrived in 1825.
“He decided to move back to Germany,” continues Jason. “I guess the idea was that CF Sr would set up shop building guitars there and they would live happily ever after. But there was a constant battle with the violin makers guild who claimed they had the sole right to build any stringed instrument. These battles went on for a few years and the court sided with CF Sr every time because there was no mention of the guitar in the guild articles. Plus, the guitars Christian was building were the best they’d ever seen. When his father passed away, however, he decided he’d had enough. He wanted a new opportunity.”
Setting his sights on the Land of Opportunity, CF Martin Sr gathered up his young family and boarded a US-bound ship on 9 September 1833.
“They left Germany and arrived in New York City on 6 November,” recounts Jason. “Imagine being in a boat on the Atlantic Ocean for two months! But right away, CF Sr went to work building guitars. For the first six years, they were in Lower Manhattan on Hudson Street. I guess the shop officially opened in May 1834. That’s when you first see the label that’s in this Stauffer-style guitar [pictured right]. That is the earliest known label. This is the earliest known Martin to exist. We just refer to it as ‘the oldest Martin’
“The earliest known Martin is a shorter-scale gut-string with a sweet, mellow sound. It’s still very playable 186 years later!”