It's exactly a year ago that I got the old D-18. I played the thing most of the day yesterday, on a cold slushy/snowy day, that seemed tailor-made for loafing. This is one of the the nicest sounding guitars that I have ever played. I have never been a big fan of Martins, or the D-18, so when this one fell into my lap, so to speak, I only thought of it as a rescue project, and one that I would probably move along to someone fairly soon after it was done. But now, after getting to know it as an instrument, rather than as a puzzle which needed to be solved, I have to say...this is a great guitar and...I think I want to keep it. A long time ago I was lucky enough to play a 1937 D-18. The first strum proved to me what all the fuss was about. I walked away from that experience with a new respect for what an old Martin could be. In the years since I have never played another Martin D-anything that had the vibe of that '37. To me, the Martins I have encountered seemed fairly bland; nice sounding, but bland, so I didn't pick up that, "I-need-me-a-Martin" bug. I knew that the really great ones were way out of my reach, financially anyway. This guitar, while certainly no collector's item, will satisfy any residual D-18 longing I may have had hidden deep within my vintage guitar psyche. As a '63 it still has all of the design elements that I find cool in these things. Above all, Martin was still using hide glue to build their guitars in the early sixties. I believe hide glue is very important to the sound of a guitar. Call me crazy; but that's what I believe. In addition, this particular instrument has all the right stuff: a great neck feel, nice action, frets and fretboard, and that tone that we are all looking for. It also has the cool individual small Kluson tuners (before they switched to the huge and ugly Grovers) which I think match the feel of the 18 series better. It has the rounded headstock corners of the fifties and sixties which were the result of a well-used, (some might say overused) template from the Pennsylvania factory. It has the tortoise pickguard and binding, rather than the black that Martin would switch to in the mid 60's. And, this particular guitar has the shadow of a hard life it lived before I got it, the scars of mishaps that it just barely survived. I like how I let it wear these scars openly too. There was just no way I wanted to send it to off to Martin, or to some expert repair guy/luthier, and spend thousands of dollars on it so it could be all artificially perfect again. What's the point of that? This guitar has had a tough life, and it's earned its place at the table with the veterans. Side by side, tone-wise I don't know how it would compare to the '37, and I don't really care. It has presence, tone, sustain, depth, a dynamic woody tonal range across all the strings, with perfect dead-on intonation. But more than anything, it has a sweetness I have never heard from one of these before. If you were in a shop with a dozen D-18s, this is the one you'd keep coming back to if you were primarily looking for a great sounding guitar. I think this is the guitar you'd leave the shop with too. This guitar has that "it" factor. It says, "Play me. I'll give you back more than you came with."
