A Stamp of Approval
Labels and Stamps on C. F. Martin Guitars
C.F. Martin generally stamped their flat top guitars in three places, on the neck block, on the inside of the back of the guitar, usually on the center strip, and on the back of the headstock of guitars with cedar or mahogany necks, or on the back of the guitar near the neck block on guitars with ebonized necks and a number of early cedar neck guitars.
Early Martin guitars are stamped 'C.F. Martin, New York' in all three places. Beginning in 1867, the year Martin took on partners and incorporated, the headstock stamp remained the same, but the inside center strip stamp read 'C.F. Martin & Co., New York', and neck block stamp followed shortly thereafter. Even after Martin moved to his new home in Cherry Hill, near Nazareth, Pennsylvania, his guitars were sold through a representative in New York, so the New York stamp remained. In 1898, after this sales arrangement dissolved, the Martin company began stamping their guitars 'C.F. Martin, Nazareth, PA.'
In 1898, Martin also began numbering their guitars, beginning with number 8000, an estimate of the number of instruments produced to that date, stamping the serial numbers on the neck block below the 'C. F. Martin & Co.' stamp.
The earliest Martins have paper labels, sometimes accompanied by an outer back stamp as well. Martin also occasionally used paper labels on instruments built for dealers, or other special editions.
Finally, Martins supplied with coffin cases had a label glued to the inside of the top of the case which indicated the style and size of the guitar. Surprisingly, a fairly large percentage of the original cases have survived with the labels still glued to the cases over a century later. If the guitar were separated from the case, however, there would be no designation of the style number and size. In 1934, Martin began stamping the style name and size on the neck block below the serial number. For a short time in 1900, Martin also stamped the serial numbers of some guitars on the end of the headstock.
Paper Labels
Several different labels appear on Martin Guitars with the 196 Hudson Street New York address.
Heinrich Schatz, C.F. Martin's friend and co-worker from Saxony to New York to Pennsylvania, was listed as a partner for a short time in the late
New York period. When the Martin family moved from New York to Pennsylvania, they sold inventory to Ludecus and Wolter for liquidation.
I've located Hudson Street Martins with similar labels and the following numbers:
No. 1114 C. F. Martin Museum. Raised ivory fingerboard & neck, tapered fretboard
No. 1160 Private Collection. Flat ebony fingerboard, round end fretboard
No. 1168 Sold by Gruhn Guitars, Nashville. Raised ivory fingerboard, tapered fretboard
No. 1173 Fred Oster, Vintage Instruments, Philadelphia. Flat ebony fingerboard, round end fretboard
No. 1176 Illustrated above, Raised ebony fingerboard, round end fretboard
No. 1188 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Raised ebony fingerboard, tapered fretboard
No. 1296 Martin & Schatz illustrated above, Raised ivory fingerboard, square end fretboard
In the 1840's Martin teamed with John Coupa, who sold guitars with the 'Martin & Coupa' label.
Martin Coupa label with the 'John F. Nunns' store stamp and Coupa's Chestnut Street address attached:
The original Martin & Coupa label:
This label appeared in a small number of zithers built for P. H. Louis Brachet of Philadelphia in the 1880's.
The 'M. Nunes & Sons, Royal Hawaiian' label appears on some Hawaiian Guitars made for the Southern California Music Company to appeal to the Hawaiian market, while other SoCal models sport the 'Rolando' label.
The S.S. Stewart Label appears on 2-17 Special Guitars Produced for Buegeleisen & Jacobson in 1923
.1976 Serial numbers 220 were also used. Begins using one set of serial numbers for guitars & mandolins. NOTE - Gibson USA goes to a 9 digit serial number in early July 2005. The sixth number is now a batch number- batch 0 starts at the beginning of the day, and once we stamp 699, the batch number will change to 1. The first 5 numbers remain the same, the last 3 numbers will remain the same. The only difference is the addition of this batch.
Guitar Alchemist 1 21 Serial Number Location
Guitar Alchemist 1 21 Serial Number Lookup
Continued to use the 6 digit serial numbers through 1978 and 1979. So double check the serial numbers on those 1970s L-5s, Super 400s, and Super 5 BJBs! Gibson’s F O N System In addition to the above serial number information, Gibson also used Factory Order Numbers (F O N) to track batches of instruments being produced at the time. In the mid 70's, serial numbers began to be used. At least for Aria guitars, made by Matsumoku, the serial number contains the year of manufacture in the first 2 digits, thus a guitar from 1979 would have a serial number, such as 79####. The manufacturing of Aria guitars were subcontracted out to Matsumoku from 1964 to 1986. Fullmetal Alchemist Opening 1 Guitar Tutorial -Subscribe for more Facebook https:/.