Paul Berger Martin D Brazilian Rosewood Mid 70's

A real rare bird we have here. 

Please review the pictures,video and below info. Feel free to contact us as well.
This appears to be a Paul Berger Custom built D41? Style Guitar.
Research tells me that it was made in the mid 70's. Brazilian Rosewood. Spruce Top. Custom Martin Logo in headstock. Bronze plate on body inside sound hole with Paul Burger St Augustine. Neck block has Paul Berger stamped on it.

Chris Martin III respected his work so much that he allowed him to build Martin Guitars to spec MINUS using the Traditional Martin Logo,after leaving Martin for Florida due to health reasons. And using his name. Very little info around on this builder.

This example sounds amazing and plays amazing. Very Good condition. A few minor scratches and dings. Light weather checking.  Comes with a hard shell case as well.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- That old-timey music is Country Music Hall of Fame duo The Louvin Brothers. And it's coming from inside the home of the very man who built Louvin's guitar.          
         
This is Paul Berger, member of an elite fraternity of luthiers, or guitar builders, who build world-class acoustic guitars.

And he does it all from the front half of his tiny, nondescript St. Augustine home.

Shannon Ogden: "Tell me some of the guitars that came across your workshop."

Berger: "So many of them. New Christie Minstrels, Beach Boys, Charlie Pride, Merle Haggard."

He left out Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney, Waylon Jennings, Hank Junior, Roy Clark, Porter Wagner, Ricky Nelson, Peter, Paul and Mary, even Elvis.

"I just love music and love the people in it. I mean, I love doing it. It's not stressful. It's a natural thing to me, you know," Berger said.

Fifty years ago, Berger, then a cabinet-maker, landed a coveted job at guitar maker C.F. Martin and Company in his native Nazareth, Penn. Martin guitars are now and were then arguably the best acoustic guitars in the world.

It turns out Berger was very good at fixing and building guitars.

In 1972, poor health forced him to leave Martin for Florida, where he found a climate good for his lungs and for building and selling his own high-end guitars, which he has done ever since.

Ogden: "I'm sure you have after you have either built or worked on a guitar, heard that guitar in performance or on record."

Berger: "Oh yeah."

Ogden: And what's that feeling like"

Berger: "Oh, I love it. I love it."

So not only is he a master builder, he uses master builder-level materials. Now, this might not mean anything to you. This is Brazilian Rosewood. It's might as well be unicorn horns for as difficult as it is to get.  

If unicorn horns made the most beautiful-sounding guitars in the world. This stuff is more or less illegal to buy or sell because of different UN treaties. But, this is the holy grail right here."

Berger's wood FYI was obtained legally before the ban.

"See how it resonates? Voice of the braces," Berger said.  

In his 50th year as a luthier, he still puts in at least 40 hours a week in his living room workshop, building 10 to 12 Berger guitars a year for rock luminaries like the guys in Aerosmith and the Eagles and serious amateurs on the First Coast and beyond.

Berger: "Rob Lowe. Actor Rob Lowe. I repaired his."

Ogden: "I didn't know he played."

Berger: "Oh yeah."

Legendary bluegrass/folk artist Peter Rowan is a longtime Berger guitar player. In December, Rowan headlined a benefit concert in St. Augustine to raise money for Berger's medical bills.
         
Right before the show, Rowan picked up his latest Berger guitar - the beauty there on stage with him.

"At Paul's ... kind of looked with his eyes and said, 'that's it.' I opened the case (strums) what?! Every note I play, it plays back a few I didn't know were there," Rowan said.

Berger is 77 now and has trained his son to take over for him... some day.
         
But standing in the way of now and some day is a certain red-headed stranger.

Ogden: "Is there any person, any player you've always wanted to build a guitar for that so far you haven't?

Berger: "Yeah. Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson. He ... he ... I'm gonna work on it."

Either way, Berger's legacy is secured and his contributions to music immeasurable.

There is a very good chance that somewhere in your own music collection is the sound of Paul Berger's work done from the living room workshop of his tiny, nondescript St. Augustine home.

"I have a partner in Paul and in the instruments he made. Thank you, Paul," Rowan said.

When St. Augustine’s Paul Berger died last month at 79, it wasn’t the day the music died — his life’s work will allow the sweet sounds to live on.

The music made possible by Berger will be able to continue through the guitars he built by hand, work that continued until shortly before his death.

Berger was one of the premier luthiers in the country, constructing guitars in his workshop here.

Friends of Berger, many of whom are musicians who play his guitars, will gather at 6 p.m. today at Creekside Dinery for a memorial.

Lis Williamson, a musician with the group Gatorbone Band, helped organize the memorial on what would have been Berger’s 80th birthday. She said Berger originals are prized possessions.

“We used to call him the Yoda of guitar builders,” she said.

Berger started in the business in 1963, working for C.F. Martin & Co. in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, before moving to central Florida in the 1970s and later to St. Augustine on the suggestion of folk legend Gamble Rogers.

At Martin, Berger was an accomplished builder and repairman who built or fixed guitars for artists such as Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, Paul Simon, Merle Haggard, Arlo Guthrie and many more.

Gainesville musician Joseph Saccocci said he met Berger after he had moved to St. Augustine and was amazed by his capabilities. He said Berger specialized in pre-World War II guitars, which he said Berger thought were the best instruments Martin made.

Berger was so revered at Martin that he was allowed to build his own guitars to the same specifications as the company did. He just couldn’t use the company logo, Saccocci said.

Saccocci helped get Berger, then in his early 70s, in touch with musicians who he knew would worship the instruments.

Even at that age, Berger was still happy to build the guitars that no one else could.

It wasn’t just his craftsmanship that was unmatched. Berger was also shrewd enough to acquire a large quantity of Brazilian rosewood many years ago, before it was no longer allowed to be harvested. Saccocci knew Berger still had a large quantity of rosewood bodies just waiting to be completed. He only needed customers.

“I tried to get him on the map and get these wonderful instruments finished and in hands of people who would appreciate them,” Saccocci said. “Here we have a guy who is trained to build authentic pre-war Martin guitars and has permission and has the wood to do it.”

It worked, as Berger had clients for the rest of his life.

“It kept him going, and I think it really helped in the last years of his life — gave him a sense of purpose,” said Saccocci, who himself was a lucky client.

Friend David Dowling said making guitars was one of the few things that ever interested Berger. He said Berger had a shop next to him in the 1980s at San Marco Avenue near May Street.

Dowling said Berger was somewhat scatterbrained about things that didn’t involve his handicraft and would often forget about mundane tasks like paying the electric bill. But he was a fun-loving person who used to entertain Dowling’s children after school, his friend said.

“He was just a great guy,” said Dowling, also a musician with a Berger original. “Building guitars was all he ever wanted to do. He had work benches all over his house.

“The last part of his life, he was sort of swamped with orders.”

One of the most interesting characteristics of Berger is that he wasn’t a guitar player himself. His friends said he was a music lover, especially old country music and bluegrass. But he knew how to make an instrument that would please artists, and that clearly made Berger happy.

There’s no doubt a few notes will dance off some of the guitars made by Berger’s hands at today’s memorial.

“He was unique and eccentric, but he was a very kind-hearted soul and really got involved with people he was building instruments for,” Williamson said. “He loved for people to play music for him.”