Martin D-18 Dreadnought Natural, 2013

With a design dating back to 1917, the Martin D-18 Dreadnought has been one of the bases of the Martin line since its official launch in 1931.

The Martin D-18 Dreadnought shares a number of core design elements with all other Martin Dreadnoughts, a large body with Mahogany neck. What changes from model to model is the wood selection and appointments. The D-18, one of the ‘simplest’ models, features a Spruce top (Sitka since the early years of WW2), Mahogany for the sides and back, and originally Rosewood for the bridge and un-bound fingerboard – it is now Ebony for those components. The binding is faux-tortoise and the tuners are Grover Sta-Tite open gear models. This is a fully acoustic model with no pickups.

Here we’re looking at a Martin D-18 Dreadnought built during November of 2013 in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. It’s in overall quite good shape, and in 2018 had a binding separation repaired under warranty.

As a post-1985 model, the faux-tortoise pickguard is glued to the finish, which prevents the ‘classic’ top crack that frequently developed when the pickguard was added directly to the top.

Light, resonant and responsive with lots of sparkle and snap, this is a very nice guitar to play.

The original Martin hard shell case is included.