Vintage Martin Guitar

1954 MARTIN IMPERIAL Trumpet ...special vintage!!!!!

These are a VERY special vintage!..........serial of 189xxx dates to 1954.....the theory goes like this, Martin was always short on cash and was getting towards the end of it's independence and they were trying new designs too with this odd double reverse tuning slide which you find on some Magnas too......but they probably didn't have the money to do runs on Imperial parts, so they used what they had extra ...which was Committee parts.....from what I can tell ..and most importantly, the BELL...but also has Committee finger buttons!.......and in fact, I've even seen a few of these that actually have IMPERIAL-COMMITTEE on the bells....but there's no doubt....all you need to do is pick these up and immediately you know they're different...got that fantastic smoky cool sound and fluidity......also does not suffer from the "foofyness" that Committees can have especially in the low register due to the super soft bracing....the Imperials and Indianas do share the same bell taper and many parts, but the bells were either made from different brass or tempered differently as they are a bit brighter than Committees....as for this horn, lacquer has issues but enough of original present to leave as is....has that jazz horn look....horn was well taken care of, no dings you can see although if you stripped the lacquer you might find some minor ones......great thing too is that the valves are not only that super quick and fluid action you'd expect but also very tight with great compression!......the only goofy thing is that there is no 3rd slide ring on these, have no idea why they did that.....I can install one for $15 but will also mess up the lacquer slightly on the slide.....you'll spend a LOT more on a horn that has those goofy waterkeys and says Committee on it, but it won't sound or play better.....all horns I sell have my homebrew chem clean and an ultrasonic.....also all new corks/spring/felts, except for valve springs which I usually leave the originals in as the action from todays horns don't seem as good.........comes with a nice soft side lightweight case

PAYMENT EXPECTED IN 3 DAYS.....PLEASE contact me ahead of time if you need to be outside that timeframe!!!!
For parts on older horns, please stop by my ebay store VINTAGE BRASS PARTS which has parts on MANY older important horns!

CONTACT ME WITH QUESTIONS and please visit my other auctions!

US.....FedEx $12-20
Canada.... USPS Intl Priority $33
International Priority US Postal Service $55-65

 _gsrx_vers_334 (GS 5.4.3 (334))