MARTIN ARCHIVES
The original 1916-dated dreadnought body templates include the Ditson Dreadnought template( left) and Ditson 111 template( right). Preserved in the Martin archives, these original patterns document the evolution of the dreadnought body shape.
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1970s and early’ 80s, receives more mixed historical marks, and Ahner is judicious about it. The acquisitions of that era largely failed. The Darco Strings purchase was the one that stuck. Quality and intonation suffered. The company that had been building over 20,000 guitars a year in the early 1970s was down to roughly 3,000 a year by the early 1980s.
That said, Frank Herbert was instrumental in pushing Martin onto the world stage, adding international dis-
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