The Minerva Tone

The Minerva Tone is based on the little seen but often talked of 1930 Regal Marvel Tone. These were Regal’s top of the line custom shop made guitar and they are essentially an impressive copy of a contemporaneous Martin 00-18. The original Marvel Tone is impossibly light, with dangerously thin plates and sides, which is why so few survived, but the ones that do always make an impression.

The Minerva Tone is braced exactly like the Marvel Tone in my collection with delicately scalloped X and tone bars and barely there double finger braces. I bump the plate thicknesses slightly in the interest of stability and longevity but the tone is all there. A bit less refined than the typical Martin 00, with just the right honk for playing fingerstyle blues and old time.

Available in 0, 00, or OM patterns