Need a date ? well then ask Martin.                         

 Most guitar companies have for the most part kept records of production ,unfortunately incomplete would be the best description of these records with the exception of one small but albeit giant company,Martin guitars. Martin guitar company can trace most every guitar it has made since 1898 and well, that is pretty good record keeping by anyone's standards. How important is this ? well knowing that there are accurate records of production numbers for a given model of guitar as well as since the 1930's the serial numbers are also recorded helps to establish serious provenance of any given instrument and it also helps you in identifying almost any Martin guitar ever made and how many were manufactured as well as the years of manufacturing for that model. Pretty impressive I think, as all this can come into play when you decide to sell your Martin guitar or when you are looking to purchase a very rare or limited production model Martin.

 Martin has tried to keep this system relatively simple in nature with regards to model numbers and  suffix designations as example the A suffix denotes ash and the C suffix denotes a cutaway body style, MB denotes maple binding and so forth. At last count I believe that Martin has or has used  43 separate suffix designations and at least 29 different model style designations, daunting but at least consistant which is more that can be said for other guitar manufacturers.

Luckily Martin guitars have a two part model designation separated by a hyphen, the first being the size of the guitar the second being the body style of the Martin guitar, where a 00-18 would be a 00 body size and the 18  being the style of the guitar followed by the suffix designation within each separate body size,i.e. 00-18C would indicate a sized 00,style 18 and C for classical guitar.Martin guitar record keeping also includes the chronology of their production for their guitar (the year(s) a certain guitar was or was not offered) .

 In general terms Martin guitars can be laced into at least 1 of 3 period production areas. Period number 1 were the Martin guitars made between 1833 and 1898, these guitars usually have light tops and are not sized larger than the OOO size guitars, they usually have no serial number no fingerboard inlays and no truss rod. The second period of Martin production were from 1898 to 1931.These guitars usually have a serial number on the guitar itself and many do not have a pick guard, they also have the C.F.Martin designation on the headstock and the "D" sized guitar were not yet into production. Last but not least the third era of Martin guitars were produced from 1932 to the present day. All of these guitars were seldom made without a pick guard, they all have serial numbers and and most importantly is the fact that they all (with few exceptions)  are numbered consecutively, usually stamped inside the body or neck block for flattops and the center seam for their arch top guitars.

 So in conclusion it is nice to know that my 1985 D-21-LEV is made of Indian rosewood with herringbone sound hole ring complete with tortoise binding and tortoise pick guard, it has a sweet vee neck and is one of only 75 produced for that year and I know all this because of the fact that Martin guitars excellence in record keeping.So my hat is off to Martin guitars for making things a little easier when it comes to the daunting task of guitar identification. So until next most may all your days be memorable ,all your friend stay true and all your riffs be killer. Greg at Greg's guitars.