We present to you a modern miracle - a killer acoustic instrument that knows no remorse. For starters, it sports its original six Grover Rotomatic tuners with large nickel-plated metal buttons and “Pat. Pend. U.S.A.” etched on the back plates. I suppose you’ll want to know this, so I’ll just spit it out: the tuner screws are rusted but the tuners can be trusted. This guitar has a black teardrop pickguard which, when we received it, was curling at some of its edges so while saving its potato-chip like torso is our highest priority, if the “bad thing” happens we will replace it in kind. Just so you know, 1967 was a transition year between tortoise shell and black ‘guard. This guitar was made in approximately late August 1967. It was the 8,531st guitar made in a year that Martin produced 12,880 serialized instruments, including 1402 Brazilian D-35s.
Overall it is quite lovely, however a person with a predilection for pickiness might want to know that our repair shop of some of the world's must proficient fretted fangists have glued and repaired 4 ¾” back crack adjacent to the lower portion of the angled bass back stripe; there was a crack through the bridge pins but we fixed that. That same superlative staff of crack tradespersons has performed a perfect refret and which enables this guitar to play like Smart Balance® on a barber pole. It happens to sound brilliant, and is a guitar that, after only one passionate strum, make you crave it like Mark Antony craved both Cleo and Patra.
This lofty and persuasive Brazilian D-35 shows normal signs of playing time including an area of facial abrasion approximately 3”x2” in the lower bass quadrant that appears to have been rubbed over a period of time by a bracelet on a player’s right hand, and another area to the lower treble side of the treble edge of the bridge which is also abraded and indented. It has an area of rough finish approximately 2 ¾’ X 1 ½” on the bass side; it has an area on the back of the neck where finish was worn hand contact. Somebody once drilled a hole 1 1/8” in from the heel cap and inserted a strap pin; what were they thinking?
We have here a guitar that you just don’t see enough of, and you certainly don’t get to hear very often. We are convinced that, having just had its “few small repairs” completed this is a completely and utterly remarkable experience in the six-string acoustic medium It is affordable, and fantastic in every way possible. It should not be such a crisis, 'cause you know that the price is: