Odd 'Martin'

JerkMoans

More eBay fun.

Said to be a 'Late 70's Martin Shenandoah'.

But, AFAIK, the Shenandoah jobbies didn't start till the early to mid 80's.  No problem - vendor could have his dates wrong.  But then the ad text explains it's a laminate back - v. honestly.  Yet the quoted serial number translates to 1968.

Thoughts?  Snide?  Or a weird limited run?  Price seems astonishingly low if it is anything like what it purports to be, which I suppose should be a red flag, and no bids...

ICBM

Logo is wrong - they actually say 'Shenandoah' where the Est. 1833 bit is on the Martin logo.

Given that it's not a 1968 D28 either for many reasons, I would say some sort of fake.

The tuners look like more modern Pings or similar as well, although it's possible they could have been changed - I think I can just see old screw holes under a couple of them, but the pic resolution is too poor to tell for sure. (Another red flag given the quality of modern phone cameras.)

BingMan

bridge looks goofy too... it's the wrong shape and think these are supposed to be ebony too. This looks more like rosewood but on closer inspection looks to be a lighter wood that has been stained darker
i'd give it a big old swerve 

JerkMoans

Consider it widely swerved  

more

The Shenandoah were Martin copies of more expensive models . So laminate back and sides is corect . But the number is wrong . The first number would be the model that it is a copy of , D28 followed by 32 , that is the number used for all Shenandoahs . 
  The brige looks wrong . Martin bridges are shaped , this one is just an oblong block .  

Stuckfast

Strangely, the auction ended without any bids.

ICBM

Stuckfast said:

Strangely, the auction ended without any bids.

That is surprising. There’s usually at least one optimist with these things...

boogieman

That looks very like a Goshi acoustic I had at one time, but I think there were loads of similar Japanese Martin copies around in the 60s and 70s.