Sunday, January 19, 2014

Martin Guitars Exhibit at the Met!

Happy New Year fellow pickers! If you will be in New York City in 2014, do not miss the Metropolitan Museum of Art's special exhibit sponsored by The Martin Guitar Company featuring Martin guitars gathered from private collections, the Martin Museum in Nazareth, PA, and the Met's own collection. This early American guitars exhibit just opened and will be up through December 7th, 2014.

Among the 35 historic Martin instruments on display are the earliest known guitar signed by C.F. Martin who came to America in 1833, the first known Martin model featuring the now preferred x-bracing construction supporting the guitar top, and Eric Clapton's 1939 Martin 000-42 featured in his Unplugged MTV concert in 1992. This last guitar sold at auction in 2004 for $791,500 to benefit Eric Clapton's Crossroads rehabilitation centre in Antigua, setting a world auction record for a Martin guitar!

Please drop a comment if you get to see these one-of-a-kind guitars before I do. Here's a preview and another!