Mountain M-40

This the M-40 described in the other review. I bought it in San Diego, new, in 1986 or 87 for $180 bucks I borrowed from my dad. I've had it ever since. Wonderful guitar, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

In one of the other reviews, the reviewer states that a company in San Diego had bought Martin tops, and the dealer I bought it from told me the guitar had a real Martin top on it. It's beautiful enough to be, especially now since it's aged about 20 years. The top is a nice warm, almost fire orange color. It still has the original Grovers on it, and they're perfect, even now.

It was a little high, but I had a new nut put on a few years ago, finally, and it's much better now, but yeah, not a loud guitar.

Well, I've had it for 20 years, and it's a friggin' work of art that's tough as nails.

I love this guitar. I also own a 1988 Strat (or whatever year it was they went back to the original, pre-cbs specs), and also a 1970's Ibanez Law Suit Les Paul and it's THIS acoustic that I would grab if my house were burning down and I could only take ONE thing out with me.

Sorry, cats. Sorry, wife.

This is a Korean-made dreadnaught, a copy of Martin's Herringbone D-28 with a fancy fingerboard. I bought it used at auction a decade ago, so it probably dates to the late 1980s/early 1990s. It has laminated rosewood back and sides with solid Sitka spruce top, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge, gold-plated Grover tuners and fully bound body, fingerboard and headstock. The fingerboard has a vine inlay from the 8th to the 15th fret, with snowflake/teardrop inlays at other key frets. There is a torch inlay on the headstock; the manufacturer's name is a decal on the back side of the headstock, a nicely discreet touch.

The lacquer is thick and glossy, and has aged to a golden color. The spruce top is on the darker side of that species, very tight grain with ray fleck ("bear paws") all the way across. The rosewood showing has good tight grain and nice figure.

The top bracing is factory scalloped and there's a diamond-shaped volute at the join of the headstock and neck, similar to the HD-28 construction. All in all it's a very nice looking rosewood dreadnaught.

This is a pretty good representative of laminated rosewood dreadnaughts. It has a full rich sound, ever so slightly brassy in side-by-side comparison to a real Martin HD-28, but not as loud. The tone has developed well over the years, since it has a good quarter-sawn solid top.

It has suited me relatively well. I play in a band with fiddles, tamburitzas (mandolin-like instruments from Croatia), accordion and string bass, and vocals. We also play for Croatian folkdance choreographies, and occasionally American Old-Time material (very popular on our European tours). The instrument is not loud enough to compete well without playing hard, so I have had to raise the action. The tone is typical rosewood with strong bass fundamentals, which I need for when the string bass is not there or when I'm in a dance rehearsal.

I didn't get it new from the factory, so I don't know what the original set-up was like. I replaced the saddle with one I made of bone a few milimeters taller so I could play louder without buzzing.

There are some drips and other flaws in the lacquer on the neck and fingerboard binding. The original pick guard was a piece of plastic with tortoise shell pattern printed on it--ugh. There are glue squeeze-outs showing inside the body.

I played this guitar for ten years as my main instrument. So yes, it will withstand live playing. The hardware is still stable. The finish is still thick. I did have it worked on recently--worn frets, adjust action--and the luthier said it would need a neck reset in a few years. That would be a problem job since she thought the glue was probably epoxy and not hide glue, so the joint couldn't just be steamed apart.

I know only two other musicians with guitars made by Mountain. One is a parlour guitar used as road axe that also sits out in the corner ready for living-room action; the other is a dreadnaught used as road axe by a well-known traditional musician.

No idea. Mountains are no longer marketed in the US.

I have been playing guitar since the late 1960s. I have gone through a series of laminated acoustics since then. Before the Mountain I played a Yamaki laminated mahogany dreadnaught for twenty years. The Mountain was my first guitar with rosewood and nice finish touches like the inlays and Grover tuners. I entered the auction after listening to comparable instruments and got it for my maximum planned bid, so I was quite satisfied the decade I played it. If lost, it could not be replaced with another Mountain. On the other hand, there are many equivalent guitars today--Korean and now Chinese factories are cranking out thousands of durable, good-sounding, playable instruments.

I love the tone of this guitar, but I could use more dynamic range. This now becomes my road axe, since I have just replaced it with a loud solid rosewood instrument.