House of Musical Traditions

Celebrating 52 years of selling musical instruments! Our store is located in Takoma Park, MD (just outside of Washington DC, and convenient to the Metro Red Line). We offer in-store pickup and browsing during our open hours.

Our open hours are 11-5 Sun-Mon & 11-7 Tues-Sat (Eastern Time). Most orders are shipped out within 2-3 business days. Don't hesitate to contact us if you need your order by a certain time; we offer expedited options and will do our best to accommodate.

We generally ship by UPS Ground, fully insured. Smaller items may be shipped by USPS. International buyers must contact us for a shipping quote (please include your full address). You will receive a tracking number as soon as it is generated by our system.

Trade offers are only considered on items that can be brought to our shop in person; we generally do not do trades through shipping. Affirm financing is available on all items in our Reverb store above $50. We also offer a direct layaway program (call us directly at 301-270-9090 for details).

House of Musical Traditions (HMT) has been in business since 1972, and was voted "Best Place To Buy Musical Instruments" in the Washington DC City Paper's reader poll 7 times. We specialize in acoustic, folk, world and hard-to-find instruments - but we're not averse to picking up good used electric instruments & gear! Our brick & mortar storefront is located in Takoma Park, MD (just outside Washington DC), and we have been selling mail-order for decades. We're staffed by real musicians who care about the instruments we sell. Both used and new instruments go through our rigorous inspection process. Any flaws or playability issues will be fully disclosed in our listings.

We are authorized dealers for brands such as Alvarez, Breedlove, Cordoba, Deering, Gold Tone, Recording King, Kala, Larrivee, Dusty Strings, Fishman, Audio Technica, JHS, LR Baggs, Tanglewood and more. For most of our new item listings, we use stock photos from the manufacturer. If you would like to see photos of the exact item we have in stock, just message us. Unlike some large chain stores or online operations, we don't have boxes of overstock sitting in a warehouse - each instrument is checked thoroughly before going out on our sales floor, and again before shipping out to a customer, to make sure it meets our high standards of playability. Please note that Brand New instruments may not include original manufacturer's box (since we are a small shop, most of our inventory is out on our sales floor). We pride ourselves on great customer service and provide future support for our customers after initial purchase.

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