This is a dreadnought acoustic guitar with solid rosewood sides and back, solid spruce top, one-piece mahogany neck, and an ebony fretboard.

Martin built the first guitars with the dreadnought shape in 1916, for the Ditson Company, a retail music chain with stores in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City. The Ditson models 111, 222, and 333 were the first guitars to carry the dreadnought designation, but differed from the later models which would carry the Martin brand in that the Ditson models had fan bracing. All Martin models were X-braced, a bracing method which was invented by Christian Friedrich Martin in the 1850s.

The first dreadnoughts to carry the Martin brand were the D-1 and D-2 which appeared in 1931, a very difficult year for guitar peddlers. Most of the Gibson production line was building wooden toys that year. Martin built a total of 31 guitars in the dreadnought shape in the years 1931-1933 (inclusive), which included the first D-45, custom ordered for Gene Autry.