“She was about to lose her house, but the money she got from me via Guitar Center ultimately saved the situation”: Joe Bonamassa’s pre-war Martin was the ultimate “museum-grade” find – now it’s reborn as his first Martin signature

Joe Bonamassa has showcased a new signature guitar with Martin’s Custom Shop, based on his 1941 000-45 – considered one of the cleanest pre-war Martin builds to have emerged in recent years.

Over the past few days, Bonamassa has posted pictures and videos slowly revealing the existence of the build on his social media pages.

“I will spare you the un-boxing,” wrote the famed guitarist and collector. “But please acknowledge the Canadian Tuxedo. Thank you @martinguitar for the honor of a lifetime.”

The guitar had been a family heirloom and had been carefully looked after before it came into Bonamassa’s possession. 

Last year, the guitarist teased the idea of a Martin collaboration based around the instrument, posting pictures of its return trip to the firm’s Nazareth, PA HQ – its first since its construction some 80 years previous.

Bonamassa also discussed the original instrument in his extensive interview with Guitarist magazine last year.

“This guitar is January ’41. Mint condition,” explained Bonamassa. “The guitar has never left Southern California since it arrived from Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where the Martin factory is. It was sold in LA County, East, and ended up in Costa Mesa, Orange County.

“It has the receipt and the original price tag which was $225 – a lot of money in 1941. It belonged to a lady whose husband had passed away and it was once his grandfather’s guitar, so she had inherited it. 

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“She was about to lose her house, but the money she got from me via Guitar Center ultimately saved the situation. It’s got this beautiful flamed spruce and it’s a museum-grade example of a premium Martin that just happened to come into my life from out of nowhere.”

Final details and specs of the Martin Custom Shop model are yet to be revealed, but – judging from the side-by-side pics shared by JoBo – it looks like a slavish reproduction of Bonamassa’s astonishingly clean original. 

The guitarist has also commented in the video above that “this is not a cheap guitar”, which alongside the Custom Shop association, would support the theory that this is an actual reproduction, not simply ‘capturing the spirit’ of the 1941 model.

For more information on the Custom Shop collaboration, keep an eye on Martin Guitar.