The company's headquarters and primary factory are situated in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, located in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.

This building no longer houses manufacturing, instead a luthier store called Guitar Maker's Connection.

[2] The range of instruments manufactured by Martin include steel-string and classical acoustic guitars and ukuleles.

C. F. Martin was born in 1796 in Markneukirchen, a small town in Germany historically famous for building musical instruments.

Although the cabinet makers successfully defended their right to build guitars, C. F. Martin believed that the guild system was too restrictive and moved to New York City in 1833.

During the 1850s, X-bracing was used by several makers, all of whom were German immigrants who were known to each other, and according to historian Philip Gura there is no evidence that C. F. Martin invented the system.

Martin and other American builders including Washburn and others since forgotten (Schmidt & Maul, Stumcke, Tilton) used X-bracing instead.

[6] The company remained family-owned and employed a relatively small number of highly trained craftsmen making instruments primarily by hand.

Martin intended it to appeal to plectrum banjo players interested in switching to guitar for increased work opportunities.

[citation needed] This was in response to specific requests from tenor players including Al Esposito, the manager of the Carl Fischer store in New York City.

[citation needed] In keeping with Bechtel's request, Martin modified the shape of their 12-fret 000-size instrument, lowering the waist and giving the upper bout more acute curves to cause the neck joint to fall at the 14th fret rather than the 12th.

Many guitarists believe that the OM—a combination of Martin's modified 14-fret 000 body shape, long scale (25.4") neck, solid headstock, 1-3/4" nut width, 4-1/8" maximum depth at the endwedge, and 2-3/8" string spread at the bridge—offers the most versatile combination of features available in a steel-string acoustic guitar.

Many contemporary guitar makers (including many small shops and hand-builders) design instruments on the OM pattern.

[citation needed] Classical guitars, which were evolving on their own track largely among European builders, retained the 12-fret neck design.

Originally devised in 1916 as a collaboration between Martin and a prominent retailer, the Oliver Ditson Co., the dreadnought body style was larger and deeper than most guitars.

The greater volume and louder bass produced by this expansion in size was intended to make the guitar more useful as an accompaniment instrument for singers working with the limited sound equipment of the day.

[citation needed] In 1931, Martin reintroduced the dreadnought with X-bracing and two years later gave it a modified body shape to accommodate a 14-fret neck, and it quickly became their bestselling guitar.

Their design differed from Gibson and other archtops in a variety of respects–the fingerboard was glued to the top, rather than a floating extension of the neck, and the backs and sides were flat rosewood plates pressed into an arch rather than the more common carved figured maple.

In spite of this, during the 1960s, David Bromberg had a Martin F-7 archtop converted to a flat-top guitar with exceptionally successful results, and as a result, Martin has issued a David Bromberg model based on this conversion (no longer in production).

The prewar guitars had a different internal bracing pattern consisting of scalloped braces (the later ones were tapered rather than scalloped), with the x-brace forward-shifted to about an inch of the soundhole, producing better resonance, and tops made from Adirondack red spruce rather than Sitka spruce.

The D-28s and D-35s (introduced in the mid-1960s to make use of the more narrow pieces of wood, by using a three-piece back design) are now very sought-after on the vintage guitar market, fetching sums in the neighborhood of $50,000–$60,000.

From 1985 to 1996 Martin produced a line of solid body electric guitars and basses under the brand name Stinger.

[12] In support of the imprisoned Kurdish singer Nûdem Durak, Roger Waters sent her his black Martin guitar he had played during the Us + Them Tour.

[13] On June 21, 2020, the 1959 Martin D-18 E, modified to be plugged into an amplifier and played by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana's 1993 MTV Unplugged appearance, sold at auction for $6,010,000 a record sale price for any guitar.

[14] On August 1, 2020, a D-18 owned and used by Elvis Presley from December 1954 to May 1955, sold at an auction by Gottahaverockandroll for US$1,320,000, the highest price ever paid for a non modified acoustic guitar.