The C. F. Martin Style 45 DeLuxe Guitar
The 1930 Martin OM-28 and OM-45 DeLuxe
Priced at $225 at it's introduction in 1930, the OM-45 DeLuxe was Martin's most expensive production guitar, a step above the Style 45, with inlaid pickguard and bridge, and engraved gold tuners with pearl buttons. Martin carefully selected finer woods and other materials for their highest quality guitars. The quality of materials, with perfectly consistent matching pieces of pearl throughout, is higher on this guitar than on any other Style 42 or 45 I have seen, from the 19th or 20th Century.
The first example, purchased used by Roy Rogers for $30 during the Depression, had a somewhat different design on the pickguard.
The DeLuxe was discontinued within a year, after two individual examples and three batches of three. Martin responded to further requests by saying that the inlaid pickguard proved impractical, and offered to sell guitars with the engraved gold tuners with pearl buttons. He had previously sold one or more of the inlaid pickguards to customers separately. which may account for any 000-45 we have seen with this guard.
1930 Martin OM-45 DeLuxe
Serial # 44070
Shop Order 814
Stamped on September 23, 1930
This example is one of five known to exist today.
The OM-45 DeLuxe was the only catalogued Martin ever offered with an inlaid bridge, though these were common on many Chicago guitars.
The OM-45, with it's solid headstock, initiated a slightly simpler torch design than was seen on previous Style 45 Martin headstocks.
Eleven OM-45 DeLuxe were built.
The first OM-45 DeLuxe was one of two built as standard OM-45 stamped on April 9, 1930 to which the inlaid fingerboard and bridge and gold plated tuners with pearl buttons were added. Unlike the first D-45 which cowboy star Gene Autry ordered from Martin, this first OM-45 was said to have been bought by Leonard Slye before took the name of his cowboy star persona Roy Rogers.
The first actual shop order for a DeLuxe was for a guitar set up for Hawaiian playing, Stamped on July 26, 1930.
A few days later a batch of three was stamped. Notice, however that four serial numbers were accidentally listed: 461, 462, 463, and 464.
#73461 was accidentally duplicated from shop order 744. This caused Mike Longworth to count one extra OM-45 DeLuxe.
The first batch of three was stamped on September 23, 1930
The final batch of three was stamped on November 28, 1930.
Longworth made one more mistake, accidentally listing this shop order twice, once as 44999-001, and once as 44499-44501.
We have long accepted Longworth's faulty number of 14 OM-45 DeLuxe.
Beside counting three twice, and counting one extra, he also overlooked the original D-45 DeLuxe since the shop order listed a regular D-45!
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