Martin D-45 History And Changes Through 1969

D-45 Changes By Year

The 1930s: From Custom Orders To The Catalog

Gene Autry’s 1933 guitar established the D-45 as a pearl-trimmed dreadnought. It had a 12-fret neck and slotted headstock. The small custom-order period that followed included both 12-fret and 14-fret instruments. The D-45 became a cataloged model in 1938.

Style 45 carried pearl around the top, back and sides, with an ornamented fingerboard and headstock. The guitar still belonged to the rosewood dreadnought family: spruce top, Brazilian rosewood back and sides, and ebony fingerboard and bridge. Its decoration distinguished it from the plainer D-28.

1938 And 1939: Bracing, Neck Width And Inlays

The late-1930s dreadnought changes reached the D-45 as well as the plainer models. The X-brace moved rearward in 1938, and the standard 14-fret neck narrowed from a 1 3/4-inch nut to 1 11/16 inches in 1939. The braces remained scalloped.

In 1939, hexagons became the standard fingerboard inlay pattern in place of the earlier snowflakes. Early custom instruments can depart from the standard sequence, so this date describes the production-pattern change rather than a claim that no hexagon example could precede it.

1942: The Original Run Ends

Martin stopped the original D-45 run in 1942. Total prewar production was 91 guitars. That number covers the original run, including the earliest custom instruments; it is not a count of every later guitar carrying a D-45 name.

There was no continuous D-45 production through the 1950s. Later pearl-trimmed conversions of other Martin models belong to their own repair and modification histories, not to the factory’s 91-guitar total.

1968: The D-45 Returns With Postwar Construction

The D-45 returned in 1968 after more than two decades out of production. It combined Style 45 decoration and hexagon inlays with the then-current 14-fret dreadnought construction. The neck used square steel tube reinforcement, and the top had non-scalloped braces.

Martin dates the move from maple to rosewood bridge plates to April 9, 1968. The restored model therefore belongs to a bridge-plate transition year. A late-1960s D-45 is not a prewar structural specification reproduced solely because its model number and pearl trim match.

1969: Brazilian Rosewood And The Material Transition

The first two years of the revival produced roughly 230 Brazilian rosewood D-45s. Published counts vary slightly, so an exact total is less useful than the distinction between this early revival period and the subsequent standard East Indian rosewood production.

By late 1969, Martin was transitioning its rosewood models to East Indian rosewood. The factory D-45 of this period had non-scalloped bracing and square tube neck reinforcement; documented 1969 examples have a large rosewood bridge plate. Those features describe the late-1960s construction, independently of the exterior pearl work.

When Did The D-45 Change From Snowflakes To Hexagons?

The standard D-45 inlay pattern changed to hexagons in 1939. The earlier snowflake pattern belongs to the first part of the original production run. The 2005 D-45 photograph used here is a later hexagon comparison, not a photograph of an original prewar guitar.

Was The 1968 D-45 Built Like A Prewar D-45?

It restored the D-45 model and Style 45 appointments, but its non-scalloped bracing, square steel tube neck reinforcement and late-1960s bridge-plate specifications differed from prewar construction. Joe’s Martin construction timeline explains those changes across the broader guitar line.