Plus, some folks don't like the huge rosewood bridgeplates in these martins of that era, and the trussrod in the neck was non adjustable - not a problem if you didn't need an adjustment, BIG problem if you did. The biggest thing to watch out for in early 70's martins is that a fair number of them had misaligned bridges, totally messing up intonation. And the SOM-45s they made starting 1977 were also reputed to be good.There are individual examples of 'regular' models from the 70s that are also good I'm sure, it's just a bit more hit or miss.

Never played one myself.Keep in mind though, these may have addressed the bridge plate issue, but still might have some of the other issues of the era: possibly overbuilt, intonation problems, non-adjustable hollow truss rod, etc.Martin followed that model up with an HD-35 with similar features.I' ve read posts where people said these were the only 70s Martin models they would consider buying.Personally I think that's a little strong for one thing, a relative of mine has a great-sounding 70s 000 guitar. The ones that sounded good.They were supposedly very good guitars, for the time at least. These were, innovative for the time, 'retro' features taken from their pre-war guitars. The HD28s were made with a small maple bridgeplate instead of the large rosewood bridge plates that their other guitars were/had been using, and also had scalloped top braces. How they came out originally.There are definitely guitars from the 70s that sound really good, but they have more things working against them than the examples from other eras do.Some of the issues relating to guitars of this era generally were:- greater expansion of production made for less experienced hands making more guitars, and strains on quality control- corporate beancounter mentalities caused overall emphasis shift away from optimal sound production in preference for reduction of warranty repairs. In some cases this might have to do with things that have been done to the guitars over the years, vs. You'll undoubtedly find 'more good' and 'less good' examples from every era. There are guys on there that know everything there is to know about Martin's and live and breathe them.

Bridge pins are the ones that secure the guitar’s strings by holding each string’s ball end against the guitar’s bridge plate. The bridge pins of a D18 are made out of black plastic, while those in D28 are made of white plastic. Some years of Martins had a problem with shrinking pickguards but for the best information I would check out UMGF the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum. D18 guitars have faux tortoise binding (darker), while D28 has an antique white (lighter) one. That being said, once again it's best to play the guitar and see how well it's held up and the quality of sound.

Martin d28 bridge lift