1939 Martin D-45: One of the 91
JIM IRSAY COLLECTION SUPPLEMENT
THE IRSEY DREADNOUGHTS AT AUCTION
Three pre-war Martins from the Jim Irsay Collection sale at Christie’ s— one D-45 and two D-18s— offer a rare public window into a market where serious transactions almost always happen out of sight. Here is how the results land against the valuations in this issue’ s price guide.
1939 Martin D-45: One of the 91
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Christie’ s Pre-Auction Estimate: 250,000 – 350,000 Price realized: $ 393,700 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The headline instrument landed almost exactly at the center of the current market range for original pre-war examples. Our guide places prime survivors between $ 350,000 and $ 520,000, with the strongest dealer listings clustering around $ 420,000 to $ 520,000— two 1941 D-45s offered simultaneously by dealer Atwell Strung were priced at $ 450,000 and $ 419,995, and Carter Vintage Guitars recently carried a prime example at $ 475,000.
At $ 393,700, the Christie’ s result sits slightly below the most ambitious dealer listings and well above the discount tier. Refinished or oversprayed examples, which account for roughly a third of all known D-45s, typically trade between $ 150,000 and $ 200,000. The $ 240,000 spread between a clean original and a compromised one tells you what the market actually measures.
The 1939 D-45 was acquired through Gruhn Guitars in 2013. It falls short, though, of the celebrity-ownership tier that has pushed certain instruments into a different category altogether. Private transactions above $ 1 million exist, though they are rarely documented, and those guitars have effectively become cultural artifacts as much as musical instruments. While the auction did not reset the market, it validated what serious buyers and dealers already understood about where clean, well-documented D-45s trade.
134 | SPRING 2026