2006 C.F. Martin & Co. D-45 "Asian Dragon"
Maker
C.F. Martin & Company
(American, founded 1833)
Maker
Harvey Leach
Date2006
ClassificationsMusic
Description2006 C.F. Martin & Co. D-45 Custom Shop collaboration with Harvey Leach titled "Asian Dragon," serial number 1142689. The guitar features the inlay work of artist Harvey Leach, who uses a combination of mother of pearl, abalone, reconstituted stone, Corian, and semi precious metals to create exceptionally detailed inlays. The guitar is a one-of-one instrument, and features a Geisha and dragon inlaid pickguard, dragon motif that spans the entire length of the neck, full dragon on the headstock, and abalone purfling throughout the guitar. In its original hardshell case.Harvey Leach, who created the inlay work on this custom guitar, wrote about his involvement with Martin in 2024: I first became involved with Martin in early the 2000s, mostly doing small projects like custom scale length fretboards with standard Martin patterns. In 2003, I was commissioned to do the Martin Custom Cowboy, which told the story of the time of the very first Martin. It displayed at trade shows in 2004 along with the 1,000,000th Martin. After that, I did several "one-of-a-kind" guitars for them, which included the Asian Dragon in 2006. The last one was the 1.5 Millionth "Davinci Unplugged." More recently I have been doing Limited Editions such as the Fire and Ice, Excalibur and The Lotus Flower guitars.
Harvey Leach founded Harvey Leach Inlays and Musical Instruments in 1972, where he has built a reputation for creating intricate instrument inlays and other embellishment work. He has built close to 500 custom Leach guitars and has performed custom inlay work for a number of guitar builders including Martin, Gibson, PRS, Collings, Santa Cruz, and Warrior. Leach is the inventor of Voyage Air Guitars, which are full sized folding travel guitars. Leach now mostly does inlay work but still builds a small number of guitars each year, drawing from a collection of rare guitar woods such as Brazilian rosewood and wood from the legendary "The Tree Mahogany." He recently surpassed 50 years in business and created a 50th Anniversary Model to commemorate.
