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Larrivée

OM-03

A shop that started in a basement made an all-solid guitar a working player could actually afford.

Toronto, 1967. Jean Larrivée is learning to build classical guitars from Edgar Mönch, in a basement. Thirty years later, the shop Larrivée started makes a solid-wood guitar for players who can’t afford the ones in the glass case.

Introduced
1997
Type
Acoustic flat-top
Class
Production
Read the story · 3 min

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The short version

  1. 1967

    Toronto

    Jean Larrivée starts building, learning from Edgar Mönch.

  2. 1971

    Steel strings

    His first steel-string guitar, with his own X-brace pattern.

  3. 1977

    West

    The shop moves to Victoria. Bruce Cockburn and Peter Yarrow are already players.

  4. 1997

    The 03

    An all-solid guitar under $800, planned as a limited run.

  5. 2001

    California

    A second shop opens in Oxnard. The satin 03s stay Canadian for now.

  6. 2013

    One factory

    The Canadian plant closes. Every Larrivée, the OM-03 included, is made in Oxnard.

Side A

A1

A basement in Toronto

Some guitar companies start with a factory. This one started in a basement.

In Toronto in 1967, Jean Larrivée was learning to build classical guitars from Edgar Mönch. From there it was the second floor of the Tarragon Theatre. In 1971, with the Toronto Folklore Center urging him on, Larrivée built his first steel-string, and he braced it his own way, with a symmetrical X that’s still the Larrivée sound.

By 1977 the shop was out west in Victoria, and people like Bruce Cockburn and Peter Yarrow were playing his guitars. Hand-built guitars from a small Canadian shop, for people who already knew where to look.

A2

Under $800

In 1997, Larrivée tried something that sounds simple and isn’t. It made a guitar that was solid wood all the way through, top, back, and sides, built in North America, and priced under $800. That first one was a dreadnought, the D-03, and it was supposed to be a limited run of about a thousand.

It didn’t stay limited. The D-03 became the shop’s workhorse, and the same recipe went onto the orchestra model, a smaller 14-fret body than the dreadnought. That’s the OM-03.

It helped that Larrivée could build in volume. Depending on which shop and whose count, it was making somewhere between 32 and 72 guitars a day. That’s a lot of guitars for a shop that once worked over a theater.

It’s a plain-looking guitar: satin finish, dot inlays, a tortoise guard. What you’re paying for is the solid wood and the bracing, and you can hear both.

A3

Not a Martin, and doesn’t need to be

An OM makes people think of Martin. The OM-03 is a different guitar. It’s a Sitka spruce top on African mahogany, with an ebony fingerboard and bridge, maple binding, and a herringbone rosette. The scale is 25½ inches, a hair longer than Martin’s. The body is about 15⅜ inches across.

A reviewer measuring the cutaway version against the Martin put it this way:

very slightly wider and deeper than the benchmark Martin OM body size, but we’re talking only a few millimetres.

The real difference is inside, in Larrivée’s own X-brace, which the company now calls a parabolic X. It comes from the symmetrical X Jean worked out in 1971.

Flip the record · By the numbers

  • 1967

    The year Jean Larrivée started building in Toronto.

  • $800

    The 1997 launch promise for the first 03, a dreadnought. All solid wood, made in North America, for under that.

  • 1,000

    The limited run the first 03s were supposed to be. It never stopped.

  • 15⅜″

    Lower bout, by the factory’s measure. Martin’s OM is 15.

Side B

B1

From Vancouver to Oxnard

For years the 03s were a Canadian guitar. When Larrivée opened a shop in Oxnard, California, in September 2001, the split was satin 03s in Canada and the glossy models in California. That held until November 2013, when the Canadian plant closed and everything moved to Oxnard.

So an older OM-03 might be from Vancouver, and a new one is from California. Much the same recipe: Sitka, mahogany, and Larrivée’s X. Larrivée has never said how many it made. It has spun off plenty of cousins, a cutaway, a rosewood version, one with a pickup, but the plain OM-03 is still there, the simplest of the bunch.

Plenty of famous people play Larrivées: Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Tommy Emmanuel, and a long list after that. None of them is tied to a plain OM-03, so I won’t pretend. Chris Hadfield’s “Space Oddity” on the space station was a Larrivée parlor, a different guitar. The OM-03 player the company names is Scott Southworth, and his is a custom. He plays a few Larrivées, and his line on them is “Balance, tone and a beautiful voice that has never once let me down.”

B2

The one you can order tomorrow

You can walk into a shop today and buy an OM-03. It’s still the Recording Series, still satin, still solid Sitka on mahogany with Jean’s brace underneath.

It isn’t a collector’s guitar, and it never tried to be. Jean Larrivée learned to build in a basement. Thirty years later, his shop built one for the people who were going to take it to a gig, sweat on it, and play it every day.

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

  • 1967

    Jean Larrivée

    Founder

    Started with classicals in Toronto, then worked out the X-brace that’s still the house sound.

  • 1967

    Edgar Mönch

    The teacher

    Built classical guitars, and taught Larrivée.

  • 2007

    Scott Southworth

    OM-03 MT Custom

    Has played Larrivées since 2007. His OM-03 is a custom, not the stock one.

  • 1977

    Bruce Cockburn

    Not this one

    One of Larrivée’s first well-known players, on shop-era guitars twenty years before the 03.

  • 2013

    Chris Hadfield

    Not this one

    His “Space Oddity” on the space station was a Larrivée parlor, not an OM-03.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Sitka, African Khaya, and a 15⅜-inch 14-fret OM — Larrivée's satin recording guitar, not a Martin OM-28.

Body
14-fret orchestra model; Sitka spruce top; African Khaya mahogany back and sides; maple binding, herringbone rosette, multi-strip purfling; tortoise pickguard. Factory: 15.375" lower bout, 11.75" upper, 9.5" waist, 19.25" body, 4.25" deep, 40.5" overall. Some dealer sheets print 15.25" lower bout. Guitar World on the cutaway sibling OMV-03: 387.3 mm wide, 107.9 mm deep. Mix flagged.
Neck
Mahogany, hand-fit dovetail; dual-action truss; joins at 14th. Sweetwater: between “C” and “D.”
Fingerboard
Ebony, maple bound, inlaid dots; 16" radius; 20 frets (Blue Book; Reverb; Sweetwater; Guitar World OMV-03)
Scale
25.5". Twelfth Fret: 647.7 mm. Guitar World OMV-03: 648 mm (25.5"). Guitar.com on an OM-03 walnut special: 650 mm / 25.6". Mix flagged. Do not average.
Pickups
None on this table. OM-03E is another guitar on this plate.
Hardware
Ebony standard bridge, 2-1/4" spacing; high-density bone saddle; composite pins with dots; Larrivée tuners; hardshell flat-top case
Electronics
None (OM-03). OM-03E: factory page prints Element Bronze; 03 series copy and many dealer sheets print LR Baggs Stagepro Element. Sweetwater OM-03E: LR Baggs VTC Element. Keep the names. Don’t flatten them onto this table.
Finish
Satin
Nut
High-density bone, 1-3/4". Twelfth Fret: 45 mm. Guitar World OMV-03: 44.3 mm in the spec box, 43.3 mm (1.75") in the body. Mix flagged. Do not average.
Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Current typical = live factory OM-03 Recording Series, UPC 844256001349, MAP $2,149 (larrivee.com, fetched 11 September 2026). Factory inches; millimetres from named reviews of this silhouette — mix flagged; no extra millimetres invented. OM-03E is the pickup sibling. OMV-03 is the cutaway. OM-03R is rosewood. D-03 is the dreadnought 03. OM-40 is 40 Legacy. OM-03 “American OM” is a six-piece limited on a different factory URL. Not a Martin OM-28. No Gibson SKU.

Construction

The job was a solid-wood orchestra model a working player could buy without a Nazareth invoice. Jean Larrivée already had a shop. Toronto, 1967. Factory About: a mechanic, Edgar Mönch, classicals in a basement, then the second floor of the Tarragon Theatre. Southern Vintage: first steel-string 1971, at the urging of the Toronto Folklore Center. His own symmetrical X. That brace is still the house sound. The 03 is how the shop put it on a counter.

It is not a Martin OM-28 (martin-om-28). Nazareth’s Orchestra Model is a 14-fret 000 / auditorium: 15" wide, current Standard 25.4" long-scale, East Indian Style 28, herringbone. This is Larrivée. Lower bout 15.375". Scale 25.5". African Khaya, maple bind, satin, dots. Guitar World (David Mead, 22 March 2022), on the cutaway sibling: “very slightly wider and deeper than the benchmark Martin OM body size, but we’re talking only a few millimetres.” Same search at the counter. Different factory, different wood, different brace. Do not nest this guitar under the Martin OM family.

1997 is the 03. Factory About: the first made-in-North-America all-solid high-end guitar under $800; initially a limited edition, the D-03 becomes the workhorse. Southern Vintage: beginning of 1997, intended limited run of 1,000. Premier Guitar (OM-10 review, 8 October 2012): 1997 D-03. That is a dreadnought. Fretboard Journal (August 2008): in the 1990s the line added dreadnoughts and orchestra models. Blue Book: OM-03W walnut, disc. 1999. Factory manufacture-date page still treats first-generation 03s as a class — serial ink-stamped on a white label. This plate starts in 1997. That year is the 03 window, attributed. It is not a first-year stamp the live OM-03 card itself prints.

What you get is a 14-fret flat-top. Sitka on African Khaya — factory 03 copy: FSC-certified Khaya, kiln dried. Mahogany neck in a hand-fit dovetail. Ebony board, bridge, headplate. Maple bind. Herringbone rosette. Multi-strip purfle. Tortoise guard. Satin. High-density bone nut and saddle. Composite pins with dots. Dual-action truss. Larrivée tuners. Hardshell flat-top case. Live factory, 11 September 2026: Parabolic X-Brace. Join at 14th. 20 frets. Nut 1-3/4". Spacing 2-1/4". Scale 25.5". Body 19.25" long, 15.375" across, 4.25" deep. Overall 40.5". Radius 16".

Bracing names move. Current 03 card: Parabolic X-Brace. Older dealer sheets and Sweetwater still say X-Brace. Audiofanzine on a mid-2000s OM-03: symmetrical parabolic X. The 40 series is the other recipe — factory news, 8 February 2016: Scalloped Parabolic Hybrid, non-symmetrical scalloped lateral cross-bracing on the X. Guitar.com (Michael Watts, 10 March 2022) reviewed an OM-03 Walnut with moon-harvested European spruce and scalloped hybrid bracing at 650 mm / 25.6". That is a special. It is not this mahogany Recording Series table. Don’t average 25.5 / 25.6 / 648 mm / 650 mm.

Place is a year split. Factory: satin 03s in Canada, gloss in California after the Oxnard shop opened September 2001. Wikipedia and factory About: Canadian plant closed November 2013; all current production Oxnard. Vintage Guitar (Aug. 1999) on a D-03E still talks Vancouver satin, a clear pickguard, Fishman Prefix Plus. Current OM-03: tortoise, no pickup. First-generation 03s had their own serial range (Larrivée forum; factory lookup). Serials date a guitar. They don’t count a year.

Not the cutaway. OMV-03 is Venetian, MAP $2,499; OMV-03E $2,699 (factory USD price list). Not OM-03R. Rosewood back and sides, current mfg. on Blue Book. Not D-03. Same 03 recipe on a dreadnought. Not L-03. House L body. Not OM-40. 40 Legacy, scalloped hybrid, MAP $2,299. Not OM-10. Deluxe rosewood, MAP $5,249. Not the six-piece “American OM” on a different factory URL. Not a Gibson. No Gibson SKU.

Current production is still the Oxnard Recording Series OM-03. Sitka. Khaya. Satin. Parabolic X. 14-fret. The guitar you can order tomorrow.

Players

Do not hang a Martin OM-28 on this plate. Do not recruit a 1970s Larrivée, a parlor, or a 40-series custom as if it were this 03.

Scott Southworth — OM-03 MT Custom. Factory artist page: plays 000-40R, OM-03 MT Custom, D-10, 00-03. “Balance, tone and a beautiful voice that has never once let me down.” Playing Larrivée since 2007. Named object. It is a custom. It is not the stock mahogany Recording Series on the live card. Which records sit on which guitar is unpublished here.

Not this guitar. Chris Hadfield’s ISS “Space Oddity” cover is a Larrivée parlor (Wikipedia). Factory About names Bruce Cockburn and Peter Yarrow as the first high-profile players by 1977 — shop-era instruments, years before the 03. Willie Watson’s factory page is OM-1 and OM-50. Brandon Lake is OM-40 Custom Vintage. MaRynn Taylor is OM-40R / OMV-44R. None of those is this table.

Also known to play stays short. Factory “Larrivée Players” names Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, John Sebastian, Robert Plant, Sarah McLachlan, Tommy Emmanuel, Pete Anderson, Nick Jonas, and others — Larrivée in general. Guitar World repeats Paisley / Urban / Sebastian as brand attention. No named OM-03, no session, no serial on that list. Do not upgrade a house roster into this guitar.

Rarity

You can order a new OM-03. Current production is not rare. Recording Series, Oxnard, regular catalog. Cutaway, rosewood, pickup, and limited woods are other cards. They are not a 1997 first-generation 03.

Larrivée did not publish OM-03 unit totals. None invented. Serials date a guitar. They don’t count a year. Factory lookup: first-generation 03s may carry an ink stamp on a white label; numbers before 100000 encode series then serial; duplicated dates exist — use the model to confirm. Forum: original late-1990s 03s ran their own serial range. That is why a first-year census is unknown, not the chapter.

Company output is not this model. Factory About: 32 guitars a day in the Cordova Street shop. Southern Vintage: 60–72 a day in the 1998 Vancouver plant, 35 a day after 2001. Keep them labeled as house totals. Southern Vintage’s “over twenty thousand steel string guitars” is all Larrivée, and that page is not a 2026 census.

What is actually thinner: first-generation Canadian 03s with the ink-stamp label and the old 03 serial range; pre-2013 Vancouver satin examples now that the line is Oxnard-only. Southworth’s MT Custom is one object. It is not a vintage OM-03.

Value

Informal estimate, 11 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask vs sold labeled. Celebrity lots are not-comps. No invented medians or factory counts. Period under $800 (factory About, 1997 D-03) is 1990s 03-series money, not 2026 street, and it is a dreadnought launch price.

New street. Factory OM-03 Recording Series $2,149 (larrivee.com, fetched 11 September 2026). Same MAP on the live USD price list: OM-03 Mahogany/Sitka $2,149.00. Sweetwater $2,149.00; certified open box $1,934.10. OM-03E (Element Bronze) $2,349 on the product page — pickup sibling, not this cart. OMV-03 $2,499 / OMV-03E $2,699 are cutaways. Guitar World 2022 OMV-03 with Anthem $2,748 / £2,428 is 2022 cutaway money. Guitar.com 2022 OM-03 Walnut special £2,349 is a different guitar.

Used modern. Reverb Price Guide, Recording Series OM-03 2022–Present Natural: $779–$1,694 (56 orders, Good to Mint, fetched 11 September 2026). Named solds, not a series average: 24 August 2026 Very Good $1,000; 23 August Excellent $1,200; 24 July Excellent $1,299.99; 18 July Very Good $1,087.10; 11 July Excellent $1,100; 8 June Very Good $775; 28 February Excellent $900. Sweetwater Gear Exchange Price Advisor: used $1,117–$1,655. Do not average those into a midpoint.

Vintage / collectible. There is no pre-war tape. Early Canadian 03s trade as used working guitars, not Nazareth OM money. Named asks, not hammers: 1997 semi-gloss OM-03 $1,275; 2002 satin $800; 2005 Natural $1,499 / OM-03R $1,450. Do not average those asks. Southworth’s custom is one object. Not a comp.

See also

  • martin-om-28 — 15" 000/auditorium, 25.4" long-scale Style 28; the Nazareth guitar this Oxnard OM is not
  • lowden-o-25 — another non-Martin OM conversation; Irish jumbo, not this 15⅜" box
  • collings-d2h — shop-built acoustic peer; Austin dreadnought, not an OM

Sources

Guitars this one gets compared to, confused with, or descended from.