Price check for a1971 D28

johnhe · April 2015

There is a beautiful 1971 D28 in a local store for sale. It plays incredibly well, with a lovely low action, so I assume it has had a neck reset. In ballpark terms, if you guys were looking at a D28 of that vintage, what would constitute a good deal, and what would be upper end pricing? Thanks for your help.

richardhomer · April 2015

Frailers have a '71 D35 - which is probably worth about the same as a D28 used:

http://www.frailers.com/acoustic-guitars/martin-guitars/martin-d35-acoustic-guitar-876226633.html

Their pricing tends to be very reasonable for a retailer.

johnhe · April 2015

Perfect, thanks. The one I saw locally looks over priced.

richardhomer · April 2015

The 'more' valuable ones are pre-1970 when they still used Brazilian Rosewood ('69 was the last year IIRC).

I seem to remember that in the early '70s that there were fairly significant intonation issues on some guitars, due to incorrectly placed bridges. I can't remember the source of this info - I'm sure someone else will confirm - or correct me.

Martin (much like Rickenbacker) has never really had an accepted 'bad' period - which is not meant to suggest that every guitar they have produced is a stunner - it's just that any given year can (and has) yielded great instruments.

There's no reason why (say) a mid-90s D28 won't be as good (or better) than an early '70s one.

mart · April 2015

There's a lot of info about vintage Martins here:

http://www.guitarhq.com/martin.html

confirming @richardhomer's instinct about '69 being when they stopped using Brazilian rosewood. But my recollection is that the change of bridge plate in '68 was significant, and not good, so one might expect pre '69 guitars to be better and/or mor expensive.

crunchman · April 2015

Agree with @mart. ; The 68 change of bridgeplate to rosewood was a significant change for the worst by all accounts. They changed it back to maple in 1988. Even after 88 most of them don't have the per-war style "forward shifted" bracing though.

When I went shopping for a nice dreadnought around 10 years ago I tried a few early 70s D28s. The better modern guitars sounded a lot better than any of them and I ended up buying an HD28V. I'd look out for a second hand HD28V - it would be around the same price and would probably be a much better guitar.

You might pick up a second hand Santa Cruz for similar money as well if you are not bothered about the Martin name on the headstock.

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Price check for a1971 D28

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