John Mayer’s Martin 00-45SC

This is the second guitar that John designed working with together Martin, introduced initially at NAMM 2012. According to John’s own words, the idea behind the guitar was to create a smaller and more portable guitar.

Specs

The guitar features a 00-style body with an Adirondack spruce top and Cocobolo back and sides (notice that all the prior Martins that John played had East Indian rosewood back and sides), and a select hardwood neck with ebony fingerboard. One of the unique features of the guitar, which was apparently John’s idea, is the fact that the Abalone rosette extends over the fretboard itself.

Interestingly enough, this is not officially a John Mayer signature model since John requested that he’d prefer to be considered a designer of the guitar, and think of it not as a Signature model targeted at his own fans but as a sort of special edition Martin. Respecting that philosophy, Martin limited this model to only 25 instruments.

As far as usage, it seems that John didn’t use this guitar on the Born and Raised album since the guitar wasn’t finished until the album had already come out. He did, however, use it on the following tour occasionally. [John Mayer – 2013 G+ Hangout]