TYPE
Acoustic Hollow Body Parlor guitar
FEATURES
Body, head and rosette in the style of a Martin, tailpiece suitable for steel strings
Spruce top, rosewood neck
INFORMATION
Influenced in design by C.F. Martin’s guitars, this parlor guitar is perhaps the last piece made under John Haynes’ direction and seems simpler than the instruments Haynes made several decades earlier. From 1916 Ditson was one of Martin’s biggest customers: he sold the Martin-designed Ditson Model, as well as many standard models with the C.F. Martin.
C.F. Martin and Gibson did not make guitars with a flat top and steel strings until 1920, but Ditson had been doing this since the 1890s. It was precisely the steel of the strings that made the sound and playing technique of early blues, country and jazz in the first decades of the 20th century.