Martin F-7 archtop 1936 , converted to flat-top

You will not find this guitar in any Martin catalogue of the last 100 years. It simply does not exist. You may find conversions of prewar F-7 or F-9 archtops every now and again. The one I found days ago in the web went on Christie’s for more than 40.000 US$ . It was played by Andy Fairweather-Low on stage for about five years and was converted by Matt Umanov, a famous luthier, who surely did a really brilliant job on that guitar..

My F-7 left the factory in 1936 as a 16’ archtop guitar with brasilian rosewood back and sides, mahagony neck and arched top with f-holes. Inlayed pearl peghead-logo, ebony fretboard with style 45 pearl inlays and two non parallel stripes all along the fretboard give it a fancy look from the start. When it came to me as an archtop it was nearly flawless and original, except some play-wear on the top and some very tiny scratches on back and sides. Therefore it took me quite a while to decide for a conversion. Stephan Zirnbauer from Munich guitar shop already had done one successfull conversion-project for me at that time, so we discussed how to develop a non-existing Martin model out of this guitar. If it was a Martin model, the model number for this conversion would be 0000-28 / 45 shaded. It sports, of course a dark shaded adirondak-top with forward shifted scalloped bracing, golden herringbone-purfling around the top , white celluloid-binding on top and back , a 13,5 fret mahagony neck with the original ebony fretboard , style 45 pearl inlays and stripes and an ebony bridge. Imagine the loudness and warmth of a prewar D-28 combined with the brilliance and projection of a prewar 000-28.

The later Martin models of this size, named M or 0000-size never came nearly close to that quality of sound and projection. No wonder when you think of a hundred year old, dry and mature tonewood, that simply does no longer exist on this planet.

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