Over 50 guitars are located in the Guitar Gallery: The Quest for Volume within the Museum of Pop Culture. One of them is an 1834 Martin guitar. A nearby placard reads:
Born in the US, but with a European accent.
In 1833, Christian Frederick Martin left Saxony for America where he opened his own instrument-making business. Built by Martin the next year, this guitar shows the Old World influences of Martin's mentor,
Johann Stauffer, in its beautiful ornamentation and figure-8-shape.
Other Stauffer flourishes on the headstock--its scrolled shape and single row of tuning pegs--would be seen again more than a century later, on electric solid-body guitars.