Martin routinely goes to marathon lengths to celebrate its history. Not surprisingly, the oldest surviving maker of guitars in the world has taken great pains to accurately replicate the Konter Uke, an acoustic artifact that went to the edge of the planet and back. The original Martin Style 1 K ukulele is one of the most valuable and carefully examined ukes on the planet, thanks to its rich and storied history. Richard Konter, a.k.a. Ukulele Dick, took the instrument along on Admiral Richard Byrd’s arctic sailing expedition in 1926. Pilot Floyd Bennett smuggled it under his seat on the first airplane to fly over the North Pole, and Konter subsequently had Byrd’s entire crew sign it.
Upon his return to the U.S., Konter continued to gather notable signatures on the ukulele, including those of U.S. president Calvin Coolidge, inventor Thomas Edison, and aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. In 1952, he exchanged the ukulele for a new Martin dreadnought, and the instrument now sits in the Martin Guitar Museum and Visitor Center in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Introduced in mid 2018 as part of Martin’s 185th anniversary celebration, the Konter replica includes re-creations of all 155 signatures, plus a replica of the original interior label.
The Martin Style 1 K is a soprano ukulele, the smallest of the four main body styles, but the Konter is small even by soprano standards. For perspective, consider that it’s actually sitting on the edge of a music stand as I write this review. It was wild to get such a small box from Martin in the mail and find inside a fantastic miniature hardshell case containing the beautiful and endlessly interesting little uke inside. (The instrument ships with a copy of Larry Bartram and Dick Boak’s historical account, A Stowaway Ukulele Revealed.) The