From the Martin Gazette: "1997 marks the 40th Anniversary of the founding of The Kingston Trio, one of America's most beloved and enduring musical groups.

To commemorate The Kingston Trio's lasting contribution to folk and acoustic music, and in gratitude for their unswerving loyalty to Martin instruments throughout the years, C. F. Martin & Co. is proud to offer a special Kingston Trio Limited Edition consisting of 40 sets of three instruments each.

Each set includes a special Kingston Trio D-28 guitar, a custom 0-18T Tenor guitar, and a Vega long neck banjo-the instrumentation used by the Trio.

In addition, an extended edition of the Kingston Trio D-28s will be offered after all 40 Limited Edition sets are ordered by the dealers

The Kingston Trio D-28 Dreadnought guitar features a solid square tapered headstock with a Brazilian rosewood headplate and Martin's "old style" scroll decal logo. The back and sides of the body are constructed of select, bookmatched East Indian rosewood. Grained ivoroid is utilized for the bindings and trim. The solid spruce soundboard utilizes 5/16" height scalloped X-bracing, shifted forward to a position approximately 1" from the soundhole. Both the bridge and the fingerboard are hand-crafted from genuine ebony. Fingerboard position markers are 1950's-era Style 28 mother-of-pearl dots. The bridge is fitted with a long (or "through") saddle fashioned from genuine bone, as is the hand-cut nut. Tuning machines are Martin's vintage style open-geared variety, finished in gold, with gold "butterbean" knobs. Bridge and endpins are white, inlaid with tortoise colored "redeye dots. A hand-beveled and polished tortoise colored pickguard is used to simulate the old, under-the-finish application.

The custom 0-18T Tenor features back and sides of genuine mahogany, select Sitka spruce soundboard with Style 18 rosette, tortoise bindings, beveled pickguard, gold vintage tuners with "butterbean" knobs, and motherof-pearl Kingston Trio anniversary inlays. One interesting custom touch is that genuine ebony is utilized for the fingerboard and bridge.

Specifications for the Kingston Trio Limited Edition Vega® Long Neck Banjo are similar to the original Fairbanks No. 2 Tu-Ba-Phone XL models made by Vega of Boston. Metal parts are nickel plated. The fingerboard is ebony, bound in white, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl dots. The Vega "star" is inlaid at the 5th fret and scaled down "The Kingston Trio" and "19571997" inlays are utilized to match the D-28 and the 0-18T models of the commemorative set.

(It is interesting to note that C. F. Martin & Co. once owned the Vega Banjo Company in the -1 970's and produced Vega banjos here in our Nazareth facility along side our guitar production. Martin sold the brand in the early 1980's, and it was subsequently acquired by Deering, the current owner.)

Each instrument in the Kingston Trio Limited Edition Set is individually numbered in sequence (i.e. #1 of 40, #2 of 40, etc.) and each set instrument's label will be personally signed by Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, and George Grove, as well as former member John Stewart. C. F. Martin IV, Martin's chairman and CEO, will also sign each label.

The Dreadnought and Tenor guitars come with a Geib style deluxe Vintage hardshell case. The Vega Long Neck Banjo comes with Deering's high quality hardshell case".