What a Martin Custom Shop guitar actually is
Martin's Custom Shop is a separate build path inside the Nazareth factory. Instead of a fixed catalog model, each guitar starts as a spec sheet: body size, top and back wood, bracing pattern and brace size, neck profile and taper, nut width, scale length, bridge style, binding, inlay and finish. The dealer or customer chooses those values, the shop builds to them, and the resulting guitar is documented as a custom rather than a production model. That is the entire difference between a Custom Shop D-18-style guitar and a Standard Series D-18: not necessarily better wood or more inlay, but wood and dimensions somebody picked on purpose.
Our approach to specifying a custom starts with the player rather than the catalog. On our current floor that shows up as Adirondack spruce over sinker mahogany in a D-18 pattern (a stiffer, louder top over old-growth mahogany recovered from river bottoms), Adirondack over Guatemalan rosewood in both a dreadnought and an OM-28 body, a spruce and cocobolo 000/OM and a spruce and cocobolo 0000, a wild-grain East Indian rosewood 000-28 style, a 0-18 parlor and a 000-18 in Aging Toner, and a 14-fret all-flamed-mahogany 000-17. A 2026 M-body in spruce and quilted maple with a Paisley Ember Burst top and LR Baggs electronics is on pre-order. We do not quote prices in this copy because every unit is priced individually; the grid above shows each one.
Custom Shop Expert models: the 1937 recreations
Alongside true one-offs, Martin's Custom Shop builds a repeatable set of Expert models that recreate 1937 production. The Custom Shop D-18 1937 and 000-18 1937 pair an Adirondack spruce top with genuine mahogany, the Authentic 1937 neck profile with Standard Taper, a 1937-position forward-shifted scalloped X-brace and a 1930-style belly bridge with a glue-in long saddle, under Vintage Gloss with Waverly nickel open-back tuners. The D-28 1937 and 000-28 1937 use East Indian rosewood, with the 000-28 getting a Modified V neck with a 1930s-style heel. Upgraded versions swap in sinker mahogany or Madagascar rosewood and add hide-glue construction. We can order any of these; ask us which neck and nut width suits your hands before we do.
Custom Shop vs Authentic Series vs Standard Series
The Authentic Series is Martin's fixed-spec recreation of 1937 construction: hide glue, VTS Adirondack, 1937 neck, Aged finish option, no choices. The Custom Shop Expert 1937 models cover similar ground at a lower entry point, with fewer period details on the base versions (no VTS, no hide glue) and more on the upgraded ones. A true Custom Shop one-off is whatever you want it to be, which is how we end up with cocobolo and sinker mahogany on the same wall. The Standard Series remains the reference point: a D-18 at around $3,000 or an HD-28 at around $3,700 is what most of these customs are a variation of, and playing one first tells you what you are asking the shop to change.
Who should buy a Custom Shop Martin
Buy from this collection if you already know how a D-18 or 000-28 feels and want a specific change: a different back wood, a stiffer Adirondack top, a V neck, a wider nut, a body Martin does not make in the Standard line. Buy a Standard Series guitar instead if you are still deciding between mahogany and rosewood, or if resale flexibility matters more than a spec built around you. If you want to order a custom, we will walk through the spec sheet with you and tell you where our floor experience says the money matters and where it does not.
Dread-Not Guarantee and inspection
Every Custom Shop guitar we sell ships under the Dread-Not Guarantee: a full year to trade it in for 90% of the purchase price (pre-tax, less round-trip shipping) in store credit toward anything else we carry, a 30-day in-home trial, a professional inspection before it ships, and a humidity kit in the case. On a one-of-one that matters more than usual, because you cannot go play another one first. Our 23-point professional inspection is run on every custom before it leaves the building.
See the rest of the Martin & Co. lineup we stock, or compare these builds against other custom and boutique acoustic guitars on our floor.
