Elvis Presley 1942 Martin D-18 'Sun Sessions' Guitar

A wartime Martin

Guitar 80221 was built by hand at C.F. Martin & Co.'s factory at 10 West North Street in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Martin dates it to January 15, 1942, the day its serial number was stamped into the neck block. Martin made about 326 D-18s that year; production was low because of wartime restrictions.

The D-18 is a dreadnought, a big-bodied guitar named after the British battleships of the era: 40 1/2 inches long overall, with a 20-inch body, 15 5/8 inches wide and 4 7/8 inches deep. It has a solid spruce top, mahogany back and sides and a mahogany neck with a 25.4-inch scale.

Many wartime D-18s left the factory with open-back tuners and plastic buttons to save metal. This guitar had been refitted with sealed Kluson tuners, common on 1950s guitars, before Elvis bought it.

The kid at Sun

Sun's founder and producer paired a young Elvis Presley with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black at the Sun studio in Memphis. Their session on the evening of July 5, 1954, went nowhere until, late in the night, Presley launched into Arthur Crudup's 1946 blues "That's All Right." Sun released it as his first single on July 19, 1954.

The trio played their first show at the Bon Air club on July 17, 1954, appeared once on the Grand Ole Opry on October 2, and in November began a year of Saturday-night spots on the Louisiana Hayride. By early 1955 Presley was a regional star. Sun released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill" by August 1955, a blend of rhythm and blues and country that came to be called rockabilly.

On November 21, 1955, RCA Victor bought his Sun contract for $40,000. "Heartbreak Hotel," his first RCA single, came out in January 1956 and went to number one. By the end of 1956 Elvis was a national star. Photographs from the Sun years show him playing this guitar, and the wear on its top shows how hard he played. Scotty Moore remembered: "He'd break strings all the time. In the early days he'd just keep beatin' on it until we got through the set."

When did Elvis play it?

The guitar is called the "Sun Sessions" guitar, and the 1993 and 2020 sale descriptions say Elvis owned it from 1954 to 1956 and used it for his Sun recordings and concerts. The record is less tidy than that.

A history of Scotty Moore's career, drawing on the Memphis store's former salesman, says Elvis traded his Martin 000-18 for this D-18 around mid-January 1955, with the payments he had made on the 000-18's $79.50 price credited toward it, and that he used the D-18 for performing and recording until sometime after June 15, 1955, when he switched to a Martin D-28. Photographs place the D-18 in his hands from January to June 1955, including a February 1955 show at Messick High School in Memphis. The 1993 sale, by contrast, offered photographs it described as showing the guitar on the trio's 1954 tour and at Ellis Auditorium in February 1956. If the Scotty Moore dating is right, the guitar could not have been used on "That's All Right" in July 1954.

A biography of Presley says that soon after his November 1954 Hayride debut he traded in his old guitar for $8 and bought a Martin for $175, without naming the model. The store receipt that travels with the guitar is dated September 11, 1956, which the 1993 sale took as the date Elvis traded it in. The sources do not settle exactly when he owned it, and this page does not try to.

From a Memphis music store to a museum wall

After the trade-in at O.K. Houck Piano Co., 121 Union Avenue, the guitar was bought by a Memphis resident, a friend of Scotty Moore, who owned it from 1956 to 1991. In 1974 the owner lent it to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, where it stayed on display for 17 years.

In 1991 it sold at auction in the United States to a British collector. On May 14, 1993, it sold again at auction in London for £99,000, reported as about $151,700 (another report rounds it to $152,000), to Michael Malone, who lent it to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 1998. In 2019 it appeared in Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 8 to October 1.

In July 2020 it was offered in an online auction with a $1.2 million minimum and a $2 million to $3 million estimate. Bidding closed on August 1, 2020, at the $1.2 million minimum, $1.32 million with premium. That fell short of the estimate but set a record for an instrument owned by Elvis. The buyer was not disclosed. At the time, the highest price for any Elvis item remained the $1.8 million paid in 2018 for his white gold and diamond wristwatch.

How to know it

Serial number 80221 is the key. The top carries stick-on metal letters spelling ELVI, set in a straight line; the S fell off long ago. On his earlier 000-18 the letters had been set differently. According to the store salesman, the letters came free with the guitar: Houck's gave buyers strings, picks or their name in letters, which came from the David Wexler Company in Chicago and were made by Signa-Craft. Bill Black put matching letters spelling BILL on his bass.

The heavy pick wear around the soundhole is part of the guitar's identity, as are the Kluson tuners fitted before Elvis owned it. The guitar travels with documents including a copy of the September 11, 1956 store receipt, an affidavit from its 1956-1991 owner, correspondence about the Country Music Hall of Fame loan, a Martin historian's 1991 notes, and a 1991 letter from Graceland's memorabilia executive confirming its provenance.

Descriptions disagree on small points. The 1993 sale described an ebony fingerboard and the Scotty Moore history a rosewood one, so the fingerboard wood is left out of this page.

Timeline

1. Jan 15, 1942

   Martin stamps serial number 80221 into the neck block in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

2. Jul 5, 1954

   Elvis, Scotty Moore and Bill Black record "That's All Right" at Sun.

3. Jul 19, 1954

   Sun releases "That's All Right" as Elvis's first single.

4. Oct 2, 1954

   Elvis makes his only Grand Ole Opry appearance.

5. Nov 1954

   Elvis debuts on the Louisiana Hayride and soon buys a Martin, by one account.

6. Jan 1955

   By the Scotty Moore history, Elvis trades his 000-18 for this D-18 at O.K. Houck Piano Co. around mid-January.

7. Feb 1955

   Elvis is photographed playing the D-18 at Messick High School in Memphis.

8. Nov 21, 1955

   RCA Victor buys Elvis's Sun contract for $40,000.

9. Jan 27, 1956

   "Heartbreak Hotel" is released.

10. Sep 11, 1956

    Date of the O.K. Houck Piano Co. receipt tied to the trade-in of the guitar.

11. 1974

    The guitar goes on loan to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

12. 1991

    The guitar sells at auction in the United States to a British collector.

13. May 14, 1993

    It sells at auction in London for £99,000.

14. 1998

    It is lent to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

15. Apr 8, 2019

    The Play It Loud exhibition opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the guitar on view.

16. Aug 1, 2020

    The guitar sells in an online auction for $1.32 million with premium.

The world in 1954

• May 17, 1954

  In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court rules school segregation unconstitutional.

• Aug 16, 1954

  The first issue of Sports Illustrated is published.

• Oct 18, 1954

  Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio.

• Mar 20, 1955

  Blackboard Jungle premieres with Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock."

• Apr 12, 1955

  Jonas Salk's polio vaccine receives full FDA approval.

• May 21, 1955

  Chuck Berry records his first single, "Maybellene."

• Aug 28, 1955

  Emmett Till is murdered in Money, Mississippi.

• Sep 3, 1955

  Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti" in New Orleans.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Elvis Presley 1942 Martin D-18 'Sun Sessions' Guitar is number 58 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (57 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The ELVIS letters were a free extra: the Memphis store gave buyers strings, picks or their name in stick-on letters.
• Bill Black put matching stick-on letters spelling BILL on his upright bass.
• Martin made only about 326 D-18s in 1942 because of wartime restrictions.
• The guitar spent 17 years on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame before it was ever sold at auction.
• When Elvis traded up, the store credited the payments he had made on his first Martin, which cost $79.50.
• The "D" in D-18 stands for dreadnought, after the British battleships.