Martin OM-45 And Deluxe History: 1930 To 1933

Model Changes By Year

1930: Style 45 On The Orchestra Model Body

The OM-45 combined the 14-fret Orchestra Model outline and approximately 25.4-inch scale with Brazilian rosewood back and sides, a spruce top, and ebony fingerboard and bridge. Style 45 pearl borders extended around the top, back and sides.

The original neck used bar frets and ebony reinforcement. Those are construction features shared with the original OM period, separate from the additional ornament that distinguished the OM-45 from the OM-28.

1930: The Deluxe Adds Inlaid Appointments

The Deluxe added pearl work to the bridge and pickguard and used engraved gold tuners with pearl buttons. Its solid headstock carried a torch inlay. The Deluxe was offered alongside the standard model; it was not a later replacement for all OM-45 production.

Photographs of surviving 1930 Deluxe instruments show small snowflake-style fingerboard ornament. That is an observation of those photographed guitars. The 1939 move to standard hexagons on the D-45 happened years after the original OM-45 run had ended.

The Deluxe Ends Before The Standard OM-45

The Deluxe was discontinued within a year of its 1930 introduction. Its elaborate appointments therefore belong to a short branch of the OM-45 story, rather than a feature set introduced across the whole line.

The standard OM-45 remained in production after the Deluxe disappeared. An inlaid guard added during a later repair does not represent a factory-wide change from standard OM-45 to Deluxe.

1933: The Original OM-45 Run Ends

Martin records 40 OM-45s built between 1930 and 1933. The original production period ended in 1933, before the next year’s wider changes to model naming, scale length and neck construction.

Forty is the manufacturer’s recorded production count, not a count of surviving instruments. Later guitars and conversions using Style 45 decoration belong to separate production or repair histories.

1934: Changes In The Successor Era

In 1934, Martin’s OM designation gave way to 000. The early renamed Orchestra Model guitars retained the long scale before the scale shortened later in the year. T-frets and steel T-bar reinforcement also arrived in 1934.

The original OM-45 had already left regular production when these changes arrived. The 1976 000-45 photograph on this page shows a later Style 45 instrument, rather than the construction of an original OM-45.

Did The Deluxe Replace The Standard OM-45?

No. It was a more elaborate variant introduced in 1930, discontinued within a year. Standard OM-45 production continued through 1933.

Did Original OM-45s Use Steel T-Bar Neck Reinforcement?

The original 1930 to 1933 OM production used ebony reinforcement and bar frets. Martin adopted steel T-bar reinforcement and T-shaped frets in 1934, after the original OM-45 run.