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Old 10-17-2012, 09:20 AM
brothers brothers is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Wind Gap, Pennsylvania
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HHP View Post
Just a thought on conversions. While I don't think anyone is doing this to deceive, down the road somewhere someone else could well try and promote something like this as a vintage instrument. Might be nice if conversions had an additional label added to indicate they were modified and even better, if Martin would accept the information from converters and annotate their serial number records to indicate conversion. Probably not possible but it would be useful 20-30 years down the road.
A serious-minded enthusiast and avid collector of vintage Martins will be doing their homework if they're interested in purchasing a vintage Martin (I hope - even if it's twenty years from now!) A conversion will have very easily identifiable components that will call it out as a conversion. The hand-carved forward-shifted scalloped bracing, along with herringbone top binding, would not be on a D-28 that has a serial number that shows it to be a 1966 Martin. Also, luthiers usually sign the underside of the top and denote it as a conversion. Most serious-minded collectors can even tell if any finish has been altered on a vintage Martin. I hope this helps out with understanding the unlikeliness of someone trying to pawn off a conversion as an original vintage Martin. If someone does try this - shame on them for not being honest (and the buyer has no reason/excuse to NOT do their homework.)

- Rich
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