c. f. martin & company industry musical instruments founded 1833 ; 183 years ago 1833 in new york city new york united states . in 1839 relocated to current location . founder christian frederick martin headquarters nazareth pennsylvania united states key people christian frederick martin iv ceo products acoustic guitars ukuleles guitar strings website martinguitar.com c.f. martin d 42 style 42 dreadnought size flattop steel string acoustic guitar . c.f. martin & company is a us guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by christian frederick martin . martin is highly regarded for its steel string guitars and is a leading manufacturer of flat top guitars . martin instruments can sell for thousands of dollars and vintage instruments occasionally command six figure prices . the company has also made mandolins as well as several models of electric guitars and electric basses although none of these other instruments are currently in production . the company s headquarters and primary factory are situated in nazareth pennsylvania located in the lehigh valley region of the state . the building includes the martin guitar museum which features over 170 guitars made by the company over its history . visitors can see pictures of famous guitar owners try out some guitars or take a factory tour . 1 martin also manufactures instruments in navojoa mexico . martin produced 182 instruments during 1901 increasing to 56 422 in 2000 . contents 1 company history 1.1 founding 1.2 company 1.3 the great depression 1.4 the 1960s 1.5 stinger guitars 1.6 recent events 2 notes 3 bibliography 4 external links company history edit external video oral history fred greene talks about the culture of the martin guitar company interview . namm oral history library . 11 october 2013 . the company has been run by the martin family throughout its history . the current chairman and ceo c.f. chris martin iv is the great great great grandson of the founder . the firm was the first to introduce many of the characteristic features of the modern flat top steel string acoustic guitar . influential martin innovations include the dreadnought body style and scalloped bracing . founding edit c.f. martin portrait on the 175th anniversary model c. f. martin was born in 1796 in markneukirchen germany and came from a long line of cabinet makers and woodworkers . his father johann georg martin also built guitars . by the age of 15 according to the book martin guitars a history by mike longworth c. f. martin apprenticed to johann georg stauffer a well known guitar maker in vienna austria . martin returned to his hometown after completing training and opened his own guitar making shop . however he soon became embroiled in a controversy between two guilds . guitar style transition of c.f.martin in the early eras . vienna era johann georg stauffer terz guitar c. 1820 30 and vienna stauffer style guitar by c.f. martin 1834 35 new york era stauffer style guitar c. 1834 made in new york nazareth era spanish style guitar c. 1845 and style 3 17 c. 1859 in the early 1800s european craftsmen still operated under the guild system . the guitar in its modern form was a relatively new instrument and most guitar makers were members of the cabinet makers guild . however the violin makers guild claimed exclusive rights to manufacture musical instruments . the violin makers guild filed appeals on three occasions the first in 1806 to prevent cabinet makers from producing guitars . johann martin is mentioned in a surviving submission dated 1832 . although the cabinet makers successfully defended their right to build guitars c. f. martin believed that the guild system was too restrictive and moved to new york city in 1833 . by 1838 he moved his business to nazareth pennsylvania . company edit earliest x bracing on size 1 guitar by martin & schatz july 1842 the martin company is generally credited with developing the x bracing system during the 1850s citation needed possibly july 1842 although c. f. martin did not apply for a patent on the new bracing system . during the 1850s x bracing was used by several makers all of whom were german immigrants who were known to each other and according to historian philip gura there is no evidence that c. f. martin invented the system . 2 the martin company was the first to use x bracing on a large scale however . from the 1860s on fan bracing became standard in europe . martin and other american builders including washburn and others since forgotten schmidt & maul stumcke tilton used x bracing instead . 3 while the sound of x bracing was sometimes considered to be less delicate sounding with guitars strung with gut strings this bracing method helped prepare the american guitar for steel strings which emerged in the first quarter of the 20th century . the growing popularity of the guitar in the early 1900s led to a demand for louder and more percussive guitars . in response many companies began to use metal strings instead of the traditional catgut . these became known as steel string guitars . by 1921 martin had focused production towards steel string guitars . martin soprano ukulele style 1 1950 1960 martin soprano ukulele style 0 played by tiny tim mandolins . the company s reputation and output continued to grow . forays into mandolin making in the late 1890s and ukulele making in the 1920s greatly contributed to their expansion and by 1928 they were making over 5 000 instruments per year . the ukulele was responsible for keeping the company profitable in the 1920s . 4 the company remained family owned and employed a relatively small number of highly trained craftsmen making instruments primarily by hand . by the early 1960s martin guitars were back ordered by as much as three years due to limited production capacity . in 1964 martin opened a new plant that is still the primary martin production facility . one of the consistent policies of the company was to not engage in endorsement deals . at the same time they offered a 20 % discount as a courtesy to professional musicians . they would also offer to customize instruments with inlays of names for the performers . 4 the great depression edit the great depression in 1929 affected martin s sales drastically . the company came up with two innovations to help regain business . martin 0 18t tenor guitar with modified 0 size body 14 fret joint neck 1933 was a successor of carl fischer model 1927 1930 one of these was the 14 fret neck which allowed easier access to higher notes . martin intended it to appeal to plectrum banjo players interested in switching to guitar for increased work opportunities . citation needed martin altered the shape of its 0 size guitar body to allow a 14 frets clear tenor neck . this was in response to specific requests from tenor players including al esposito the manager of the carl fischer store in new york city . the carl fischer model tenors were soon renamed 0 18t . citation needed this was the first time martin altered one of their original body shapes to accommodate a longer neck with more frets clear of the body . an example of original 12 fret joint shortscale model 00 28 nylon string guitar 1907 om 18 with modified 000 body and 14 fret joint longscale neck reissue of 1933 model 000 42 with om body 14 fret joint shortscale it was also during this time that perry bechtel a well known banjo player and guitar teacher from cable piano in atlanta requested that martin build a guitar with a 15 fret neck to body join . citation needed most guitars of the day with the exception of gibson s l 5 archtop jazz guitars had necks joined at the 12th fret half the scale length of the string . in keeping with bechtel s request martin modified the shape of their 12 fret 000 size instrument lowering the waist and giving the upper bout more acute curves to cause the neck joint to fall at the 14th fret rather than the 12th . fourteen fret guitars were designed to be played with a pick and replace banjos in jazz orchestras . thus martin named its first 14 fret 000 shape guitar the orchestra model om . martin applied this term to all 14 fret instruments in its catalogs by the mid to late 1930s . original martin oms from approximately 1929 to 1931 are extremely rare and sell for high prices . many guitarists believe that the om a combination of martin s modified 14 fret 000 body shape long scale 25.4 neck solid headstock 1 3 4 nut width 4 1 8 maximum depth at the endwedge and 2 3 8 string spread at the bridge offers the most versatile combination of features available in a steel string acoustic guitar . today many guitar makers including many small shops and hand builders create instruments modeled on the om pattern . 5 the change in body shape and longer neck became so popular that martin made the 14 fret neck standard on almost all of its guitars and the rest of the guitar industry soon followed . citation needed classical guitars which were evolving on their own track largely among european builders retained the 12 fret neck design . martin s second major innovation and arguably the more important of the period 1915 1930 was the dreadnought guitar . originally devised in 1916 as a collaboration between martin and a prominent retailer the oliver ditson co. the dreadnought body style was larger and deeper than most guitars . in 1906 the royal navy launched a battleship that was considerably larger than any before it . from the idea that a ship that big had nothing to fear nought to dread it was christened hms dreadnought . martin borrowed this name for their new large guitar . the greater volume and louder bass produced by this expansion in size was intended to make the guitar more useful as an accompaniment instrument for singers working with the limited sound equipment of the day . initial models produced for ditson were fan braced and the instruments were poorly received . citation needed archtop guitars and mandolins during the 1930s 40s . in 1931 martin reintroduced the dreadnought with x bracing and two years later gave it a modified body shape to accommodate a 14 fret neck and it quickly became their best selling guitar . the rest of the industry soon followed citation needed and today the dreadnought size and shape is considered one of the standard acoustic guitar shapes iconic for its use in a wide variety of musical genres . martin also developed a line of archtop instruments during the 1930s . their design differed from gibson and other archtops in a variety of respects the fingerboard was glued to the top rather than a floating extension of the neck and the backs and sides were flat rosewood plates pressed into an arch rather than the more common carved figured maple . martin archtops were not commercially successful citation needed and were withdrawn after several years . in spite of this during the 1960s david bromberg had a martin f 7 archtop converted to a flat top guitar with exceptionally successful results and as a result martin has issued a david bromberg model based on this conversion no longer in production . this and other conversions of martin f size guitars later became the basis for the martin m sized guitars also known as the 0000 size . the original production models of this size in the 1970s were the m 36 and the m 38 . after a hiatus the m 36 is once again in regular production . during this time martin also continued