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Before Covid, the Martin factory offered two levels of tours: The short tour and the long tour. The long tour was a half day, and it took you just about everywhere. It was awesome! I have also taken the short tour, and it is worthwhile too, but the long tour was really special.

Unfortunately, the long tour has gone the way of the dodo. In my planning for a potential trip to that part of the country, I didn't see it on the website, so I contacted Martin to see if it might be available, despite not being on the website. It isn't.

Just one more thing that Covid screwed up.

The new world order isn't always fun. Sorry you'll miss out.

Back in the 80's I attended a Symposium in Easton, and got a good tour of the factory (probably not the one there now), and I enjoyed watching rough neck carving the best. The string winding machines were fascinating, too. The strings would go wiggling off across the floor during winding, and then scoot back as the machine rolled them up to package. I even got to go shopping in the original "Martin barn" factory in Nazareth. I recall going way back in the darkened dirt floor storage area to rummage around in what seemed to be a glorified trash pile. It was magical.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Well, I didn't totally miss out; I was able to take the long tour a few years ago. I was just hoping to repeat it on an upcoming trip that direction. Oh, well.

Hey Chris,
I toured the Factory in the late 70's /early 80's (forget exactly when) and the tour guide was Chris Martin on summer break from college. I was also impressed by the guy rough carving necks busting out the wood with a draw knife, and removing most of the wood in what seemed like under a minute.
Chris Martin was selling an O or double O style 45 guitar for around $2000 IIRC in the little shop attached to the factory, where you could also buy NOS ivory saddle blanks ($1) that they were no longer using for their guitars.
Back then the work was still pretty much hand work, each person very skilled in the task they were given to do (probably a lot of repetitive stress injury). The people seemed happy to work there and proud of their product.

An end of an era.

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I was immensely disappointed at the superficial exposure and deep ignorance displayed by the person who guided me on the 'long tour', which wasn't cheap. The quality of the tour seemed to be a product of the individual guide. If this tour was intended to generate good will, it didn't. For me, good riddance.

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Peter Havriluk

Sorry your guide disappointed, Peter. Mine didn’t. Maybe staffing it with knowledgeable people was a challenge for Martin.

When did they start charging for the tour? I always thought of the tour as a PR thing - a way to showcase how their guitars were made and show the value in the premium you paid for a Martin guitar.

I dunno and I find it pretty difficult to argue with how Martin, Chris IV runs the enterprise. They are the makers of some of the most coveted instruments the world has ever known and to many including me the standard by which all others are judged.

When Gibson was poaching endangered species Chris Martin went public with videos amplifying Martin's commitment to the environment, you know where he gets all his parts.... and responsible manufacturing.

We had a client who Martin covered a neck reset on a D-35 under warranty 50 years later.... when the only documentation this client had was a picture of him toothless when he was 9 years old holding the guitar. This is one example of many and one of the very most customer centric actions by a US company I have ever heard about and I used to study this subject and teach it for GE.

My bet is the tours will be offered in the future just not all the time. Likely around open houses and such.

There is also a lot of development happening at Martin and they may want to lower the cone-of-silence on product direction. Martin is branching out with new products and new ways to build guitars and they may not be keen to let the competition know for the price of a tour.

With all this said and based on Martin's massive amount of contributions to our industry I see this differently and that's why I wish them continued success in their multigenerational pursuit of business excellence.

Great company and instruments!

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Ann Arbor Guitars