Martin Copy ????

[yamahaheriam]

My Question is : Is this a Martin Copy or not ! lol I would love to find out some information about this guitar as to its age value and any other information pertaining to it.

 

It is made in Japan 14/20 frets. Terada Guitar : Model T 760 inpected by M Terada. The action is low, also was wondering if any one could tell me is this guitar is solid top. It appears to have two pieces of wood combined for the top. It is up for grabs because I no longer have a desire for it , but would like to know a bit about it before I sell it.

 

Thanks. Yamahaheriam

 

P.s Rose's site (the terada website) has limited information pertaining to this model. Any other websites would be appreciated.

[Freeman Keller]

I guess you could say that since Martin pretty well defined the modern steel string guitar back in the 20's and 30's, and created the Dreadnaught size and shape, that any dread is a "Martin copy". If you are asking whether this is a "Martin clone" like the lawsuit Taks that really were designed to look like a D-28 (even down to the headstock decal) I would say probably not a very good one. Or if it was designed to mimic the bracing, wood, neck shape, feel, and, yes, sound, of a D-28 Martin, pretty unlikely.

 

I would say it is a Dreadnaught - period

 

Almost every guitar top is two pieces, joined at a center seam. Good ones are "bookmatched" - split open like a book and are mirror images. If it is solid you will see the grain run straight thru the piece at the sound hole. You can also find some sort of flaw or grain pattern and look for it inside with a mirror. Sometimes hard to do on spruce - easier with the back and sides.

[DonK]

What Freeman said, and I'd add that I wouldn't be too worried about whether it has a solid top or not, because I don't think it's going to have much impact on the value.

 

I say that because Terada produced quite a few of these Martin knock-off's in the '70's and thereafter, but it's not as if there are a ton of people out there looking for them (as with, say, a Tokai lawsuit Strat). I had a Nagoya N-30, probably built by Terada, that so far as I know was sold by a single music store chain (2 stores) in the Washington, D.C. region back in the '70's. It was a very nice guitar - a dead ringer cosmetically for a D-28 and not bad sounding either. I got a grand total of $90 for it when I sold it a couple of years ago (I paid $200 for it new when a D-28 was going for around $550). It had a solid spruce top, and a luthier I took it to before selling it told me the rosewood back and sides were solid too. There are so many Martin copies out there today that the market for the obscure ones is next to nil. Put it on eBay and see what you get. I'm betting that even if it has solid rosewood back and sides you'll be lucky to get $150 for it.

 

So, yeah, from a size and shape standpoint it's a Martin copy, but by that definition so is a Collings D2H, Larrivee D-60 or Sigma D-41, which represent a price range from $350 to $4K.