The Martin HD 28 VR Acoustic Guitar

Years ago I had a nice job which allowed me to have disposable income, and plenty of it for a guy with no wife or children. Despite me being an amateur guitarist, and not a professional one - I found that along with my addictive personality, and all out love of music, I was not satisfied to have just one world class and all around amazing, and beyond professional level instrument in my possession, and so I wanted another one. I could pay for another one even.

I was subscribed to and reading several different magazines that focused on acoustic guitars and acoustic guitar music. I was also expanding my appreciation of various styles of acoustic guitar music. I was expanding my mind.

As it happened, I had got it into my mind that I wanted something very different from my Santa Cruz Model D Flat top guitar, a guitar with Brazilian Rosewood backs and sides, and a Sitka Spruce soundboard. I'm not sure any more exactly why, but I decided I wanted a smaller guitar. I think I had thought that I'd be able to play a smaller bodied instrument with greater ease. I'd decided that I wanted to own Martin's Eric Clapton model, the 000 - 28EC.

Now, I could speak at great lengths here about how foolish it is to decide that you want a specific model of guitar - having not played one of them as of yet. It's foolish, trust me on that. I'm certain that the Martin 000 -28EC is an OUTSTANDING and WORLD CLASS studio and professional instrument. My God! Eric Clapton owns one of those things! Of course it is an outstanding guitar!

So why, you ask, is it foolish to go to a guitar store with a specific guitar in mind? Well, every guitar is unique - and no matter how much someone tries to make one specific guitar exactly alike another specific guitar of the exact some make and model (think of two identical guitars made by the same luthier, or guitar maker out of the same materials from the exact same trees even. . .), it can't be done. Every single guitar ever made has it's own unique characteristics. Musical instruments - and especially stringed instruments made of various and sundry tonewoods, are all unique like people, or snowflakes.

My point here is that even though one could possibly enter a guitar store with their sights set on a Martin 000 - 28EC, one never knows which instrument that they pick up and pick a little will GRAB THEM by the soul, and force them to fork over well over a thousand dollars to buy.

So I went to the Guitar Centre by the Galleria Mall in the Dallas and Forth Worth Metroplex with the intentions to buy one thing, but I wound up buying another thing altogether. I bought a brand spanking new Martin HD 28 VR. I believe that I paid somewhere around $1,600.00 for it, and because it had been the display guitar, and had a belt buckle ding on it or two, I got it for several hundred dollars less than an untouched model would have sold for.

Let me give you some VERY GOOD ADVICE here from a VERY QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL - when you play a guitar shop display guitar, and you want to buy it BUY THE GUITAR THAT YOU PLAYED. Do NOT buy a guitar just like the one that you played - it's a DIFFERENT GUITAR! There is no promise, guarantee, or reason to think that you will like a guitar that you have NOT seen and played as well as the one on display that you HAVE seen and played. Just because the untouched guitar in the back somewhere is the exact same model - that doesn't mean that you'll like that guitar as much as the one on display that you have seen and played.

Certainly - there are cases where the guitar in the back of the store, inaccessible to the public that is the same model as one on display - sometimes when a customer winds up with that one instead of the one he played that was on display, he likes it better. I'm only saying that there is no guarantee of that, and that you should only buy guitars that you've had your hands on.

Dude, shut the hell up about buying a guitar already! What the hell is an HD 28 VR? What do all those letters and numbers mean, and why do I care?

AH! Thank you, inner voice, for keeping me on track. The HD 28 VR basically means Herringbone Dreadnought 28 Vintage Reissue! What that is is a guitar by the C.F. Martin & Co that is supposed to be built to the exact specifications as their legendary pre world war two model D 28. It IS a guitar built to those specifications - but it's not built using the exact same woods, that would be the Martin HD 28 GE, or "Golden Era." The HD 28 VR is possibly just as good a guitar as the HD 28 GE, but it's not going to cost so much, or re sale for so much as the HD 28 GE. The Golden Era model D 28 is a Brazilian Rosewood and Adirondack Spruce guitar while the Vintage Reissue is a East Indian Rosewood and Sitka Spruce guitar.

What you have with the HD 28 VR is a guitar that is fairly affordable, but yet is built to the exact specifications as guitars that are only affordable to persons with large amounts of disposable cash. For less than a quarter the amount of money that you would have to spend to buy the Golden Era Brazilian Rosewood and Adirondack Spruce guitar, you can purchase the East Indian Rosewood and Sika Spruce guitar that might very well be a better guitar - but is simply made from less rare woods. A tonewood being more available than another in no way means that it is a less desirable tonewood - it's just a matter of supply and demand. Brazilian Rosewood and Adirondack Spruce are in short supply, and huge demand - East Indian Rosewood and Sitka Spruce are in much greater supply nowadays, but whether or not they are inferior tonewoods is most often a matter of opinion.

Basically, the HD 28 VR is a professional's instrument, despite the fact that someone let me buy one too one time. It's more acoustic guitar than you could ever need, and it can never be outgrown. It is essentially the most copied guitar in the world, and by and large, the exact same guitar as the most copied SPECIFIC acoustic guitar in the world, the 1935 D 28 that used to belong to Clarence White, and now belongs to Tony Rice. I promise you all that East Indian Rosewood and Sitka Spruce can be and most often is every bit the tonewood that Brazilian Rosewood and Adirondack Spruce are - and that furthermore, the High X bracing of this guitar makes it every bit the cannon of the Martin D 28's of years gone by.

The Herringbone trim, zig zag binding, ebony fretboard and snowflake abalone inlay make this guitar as beautiful to the eye as to the ears. It's perhaps the best deal in high end solid wood acoustic guitars in the entire world.

In conclusion I hope that I managed to explain what a Martin HD 28 VR acoustic guitar is, why it's such a sought after and tremendous guitar, and I also hope that I provided some good advice for anyone shopping for any acoustic guitar.

Also, what I failed to mention above, as my inner voice told me to get on with the show, was that I was ripped off at the Galleria Guitar Centre - they gave me a solid case for my Martin HD 28 VR, but not the case that it should have came with. I got jipped by about a hundred bucks on the level and quality of Martin guitar case. Be certain that you know which guitar case you should get with any guitar that you purchase - and you should DEFINITELY be getting a great guitar case with every great guitar - it's part of the package, and isn't supposed to ever be sold separately.

Thanks for reading. All feedback accepted, and all questions will be answered as well as I can answer them.