True beauty comes with age and experience, and that is certainly true when it comes to this century + old Martin 0-42

The small body 0 design is a comfortable one that boasts nice sonic detail -suitable for all playing styles - but given this guitars exceptional trim would make its way to the top tier of many collections. The body is constructed with a nicely grained solid spruce top, fully bound in ivory and pearl. The back and sides, Brazilian Rosewood, again bound in ivory, with a marquetry zipper back strip. Rare enough as it is, this is high quality very straight grained Brazilian RW. The top shows two small cracks which are hard to visually discern from the outside. Internally, there are 5 small diamond shaped cleats present. It retains the original long, thin maple bridge plate, with a separate slightly smaller piece added to give the bridge pins more purchase. The back shows two cracks parallel to the center seam, which have been glue sealed (no cleats), which are structurally strong. Internally, the guitar is in very good condition. The pyramid bridge is an exact ivory reproduction, seating a nice tall bone saddle (about 6/64" in height over the slot). Clearly the work of an expert repair person as it should be. This is lovely guitar suitable for steel strings as it is X braced and has a wonderfully "modern" sound.

The neck is designed with a standard 24.9" scale length, constructed out of Spanish Cedar with an ebony fingerboard - again bound in ivory, and sporting the iconic snowflake fingerboard inlay pattern. The fingerboard is nice and clean with bar frets present and in good condition (likely replaced given some of the other work, but clearly expert work once again). The neck has a fairly text book V profile from the era, with volute at the headstock in clean condition. The profile measures about .85" in depth at the first position and tapering up to about 1" at the ninth fret (before the curve of the heel). It has a wide 1 7/8" nut width, great for finger style. Original Handel tuners present and in great working condition. A clean slot headstock, with Nazareth stamp on its rear.

This guitar was shipped to Southern California Music Co. in Los Angeles, CA on February 27, 1918 as part of a batch of style 42 and 45 guitars.

Includes well fitted newer hardshell case.