Parts Kits

Total number unknown

The last completely assembled and finished SE-6032 left the Martin factory in Nazareth PA in 1992, and in fact all 60 examples of the SE-6032 were built that year. The list shown above strongly suggests that during that same year or shortly afterwards C.F Martin & Co had made the decision to wash their hands of the entire hybrid-manufacture business and dump the unassembled parts they still had on hand in Nazareth. To give C.F. Martin & Co their due, it should be mentioned that these kits contained everything needed to make a complete guitar, right down to a set of strings and a copy of Dick Boak’s Helpful Hints For Guitar Construction. A copy of the list shown above was graciously provided to the Webmaster by AGF member ejbrook way back in July of 2010. The same member also started a thread on the AGF about these kits during the same time period. I will quote only a small portion of that discussion below

“My guitar was from the Martin guitar factory. It is one of the last of a product run of the Master Artist series. However they discontinued making them for production and sold many of the remaining unfinished guitars as "pre-assembled kits. I have all the orginal documentation and proof

<snip>

My body sticker was removed by Martin Guitar company and the glue marks are still visiable. Like yours it is a square headstock without the martin logo”

The entire thread makes for very interesting reading, and can be found in the archives of the AGF here

To date, at least one example four different models are known to have been sold in kit form: models SE-6032, D-3532, OM-28, and OMC-28

The UMGF has an interesting thread on the general subject of Shenandoah kits here