Guild X-82 Nova Starfighter pointy madness from 1984

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As a fan of Guild guitars, even after Fender bought them, I was well aware of some of their 1980s metal efforts. I've never played one but I suspect they are as playable as any other Guild. This Guild X-82 Nova Starfighter reminds me a lot of the Ibanez Destroyer of the same era. And since i cannot find evidence of this model after 1984 this could in all actuality be The Last Starfighter.

R.W. Haller


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Takamine F365s Guild Jumbo Copy.

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I've long been a fan of the earlier Takamines and have played and done repair work on a few of them over the years. All of them have been Martin copies.

One of the great things about looking for guitars for this site is that I am already finding a lot of guitars that I never knew existed. Takamine copied Guild as well?  I swear i had no idea.

This well loved Takamine F365s is from 1976, sports a spruce top, rosewood back and sides, and may very well be calling my name. At $600 it's tempting.

I love Takamines, Guilds, and Jumbo guitars. It's a trifecta of guitar nirvana.

R.W. Haller




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1981 Guild Starfire IV semi-hollowbody electric guitar

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Here's a Guild Starfire SF-4 from 1981 with walnut finish, set neck construction, ebony fingerboard, factory stop tailpiece, and Westerly, RI label. Yes, a tasteful guitar from the 1980s; perhaps only those Guild XR-7 pickups without covers give a clue as to its age. Guild are one of the (almost) forgotten great American guitar brands; it's a shame people often only remember them for their acoustics. Today the brand survives as part of the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and still produces high-end acoustic guitars. Guild's electrics are all but forgotten, with only those who appreciate what is truly cool such as contemporary guiar company PureSalem  producing Guild-inspired guitars.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,450.

Thanks to Sam B who spied this beauty on eBay.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
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1976 Guild Model B-50 NT acoustic bass guitar

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I've pondered before as to what may have been the earliest production model of an acoustic bass guitar. This Guild Model B-50 NT probably comes close as being one of the first. This example was built in 1976 so it is certainly contemporaneous to the Ernie Ball Earthwood acoustic bass which was in production from 1975 to 1985. Modern bass players who like playing high up the neck might not be too impressed that the neck meets the body at the 14th fret, but the Ernie Ball was worse with the neck/body junction at the 12th fret. Like the Ernie Ball, the Guild B-50 NT has a huge body ideal for recreating those string bass tones; the body depth is a whopping six inches! These earliest of acoustic basses were built purely as acoustic instruments and did not require on-board electronics so as to be heard above other acoustic instruments, unlike the majority of acoustic basses in production today.

Currently listed on eBay, this is a whopping bass with a whopping Buy It Now price of $2,295.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

Custom shop Guild M-75 Bluesbird

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Guild's M-75 model was released as the Aristocrat in 1952 - the same year than Gibson's Les Paul - and has a hollow body despite its lack of sound holes. It's been discontinued and re-issued over the last decades in different versions - switching to its new name Bluesbird in 1968.

This recent (I don't know the precise date, but it doesn't look vintage) custom shop seafoam green model has DeArmond pickups and cool looking pickguard and knobs - and an elegantly slanted hardtail replaces the usual Guild stoptail. These guitars have quite good reputation, and I like their simplicity. 

Bertram D

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

DeArmond M55

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Strangely it is difficult to find information about this DeArmond M55 - though it's an internet era guitar released in the 2000s! Even though it's been discontinued and DeArmond don't produce guitars anymore, Fender (who owns the DeArmond brand) could have kept a website about these guitars!

Anyway, the design of this guitar is based on a Guild model - DeArmond were just making the pickups and sign - and as you can notice, the original humbucker has been replaced by a Filtertron copy. I like the absence of stoptail and the turn-o-matic / string-through-body combination, it always feels to me that it's the best way to transmit the strings vibration to the body.

Bertram D

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!

Guild X-79 - a 1980s pointy guitar with black hologram sparkle finish

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Guild are, I believe, another maker of fine American guitar that are all too often overlooked. Their guitars are of high quality and whilst often considered as reliable workhorses they did have some wilder moments too. Here we have a Guild X-79 in black hologram sparkle finish. This particular model did seem to be a candidate for OTT paintjobs, witness this example we looked at a couple of years ago. (I think I prefer the hologram sparkle version, although you would feel the need to form a glam rock band with a guitar like that!)

I do wonder about how practical that body shape is. Whilst I can believe it might hang well on a strap with that elongated upper horn, I don't think it'd fare too well ergonomically without much right forearm support. In fact, ergonomically, I think the design would work much better if it were flipped over, but then perhaps that might make it look too Explorer-derived?

This guitar is listed on eBay UK with a not unreasonable starting price of £595 and - currently - with no bids.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Vintage & Rare guitar of the week: 1966 Guild S-50 Jet Star

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Here's another all-American vintage Guild guitar; it's a no-nonsense single pickup Guild S-50 Jet Star from 1966. It has a subtle sunburst finish (red burst?), a Firebird-esque headstock and its single pickup is placed decidedly in the centre position - which, as I have argued before, actually makes very good sense tonally if you have to have just the one pickup on a guitar.

This is currently being offered for sale via Vintage and Rare for a very reasonable €850.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild X-92 Harvey Citron Breakaway travel guitar from 1985 fully loaded with EMG pickups and Kahler trem

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Blimey, for such a little guitar this Guild X-92 Harvey Citron Breakaway travel guitar sure has a lot of names! Designed by Harvey Citron (which explains half of the names) it was manufactured slap bang in the middle of the 1980s and has the features that you would expect on a guitar from that decade including three EMG pickups in Strat-like formation, a Kahler tremolo system for extreme dive bombing, and a body shape to keep the average hair-metaller grinning like a Cheshire cat. The clever part - as you will see in the above photo - is that the top fin is removable allowing the guitar to be packed into a diminutive gig bag for travel purposes. And if you're asking yourself why have the top fin at all, I have two answers for you: (1) aesthetics and (2) right forearm support. (Ever play a minimalistic-bodied travel guitar without forearm support? Believe me, it does get tiring.)

The guitar is listed on Gbase priced at $3,430. I appreciate it may be a rare beast but in the current financial climate I can't see anyone snapping it up soon unless they are rabid Guild collectors.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild S-200 Thunderbird from 1965

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The Guild S-200 Thunderbird was the guitar of choice of Muddy Waters and and The Lovin' Spoonful's Zal Yanovsky. It was the inspiration for the 1990s Korean-made DeArmond-branded Jet Star, a guitar which is collectable enough in its own right. Naturally, the original USA-made Guild is, of course, much cooler with its antiquated looking controls, its slablike oblong DeArmond single coil pickups and the built-in stand in the back of the guitar, while the vibrato would not look out of place on one of Italy's idiosyncratic Wandre guitars.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $3,750.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

11 on 11/11/11: #10 - Guild T-50 thinline semi-hollowbody from 1982

OK, it's the 11th November 2011, that is 11/11/11, and as such today has been designated Nigel Tufnel Day. To celebrate this day of Maximum Elevenness, we here at Guitarz - for this day only - will be posting an unprecedented ELEVEN blog posts! So, keep tuned throughout the day for eleven weird and wonderful guitars!

This Guild T-50 from 1982 is an absolutely beautiful guitar. It's a semi-hollowbody, thinline, non-cutaway design with timeless classic lines, an almost Art Deco-style pickguard, twin humbuckers and a gorgeous cherry red finish.

The non-cutaway body does seem a little at odds with the date of this guitar, seeing that the 1980s were known for hair metal bands and the rise of the Superstrat and pointy pointy "careful you don't impale yourself" guitars.

This guitar is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1490.

Thanks to Jeffrey Jones for bringing this guitar to our attention.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild S30 3/4 - rare three-quarter scale solidbody from 1979

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In 1977, Guild introduced the S60 guitar series of solidbody electric guitars, a line of instruments which were in production until the early 1980s. The S60 itself had a single humbucker, whereas the S60 D intially had dual humbuckers on earlier models, and dual P90s on later models.

Picured above is a rarer Guild S60 3/4 from 1979, which as the model designation suggests is a 3/4-scale version of the standard S60; a "Mini Me" version, if you will. Whether this was intended as a younger player's guitar, for those of a smaller stature, etc, or whether it was to enable the player to use higher tunings, e.g. a fifth above standard, I don't know.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild Polara vintage beauty from 1963

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I'm always happy to feature classic Guild guitars on this blog. The company having been consumed by the mighty Fender corporation survives merely as a brandname of that company alongside Squier. I worry that the original American-made Guild guitars, particularly the solidbodies, are in danger of being forgotten.

As I said in the title of this piece, this vintage 1963 Guild Polara is a real beauty. The relationship to its sibling guitar, the Jetstar, is clearly seen in the design, although the Polara is not so outlandish and is much more pleasing to the eye, with a similar vibe to Epiphone models Coronet and Wiltshire. Body and neck made of fine mahogany, with a fingerboard of Brazilian rosewood. One really interesting feature is the Patent Pending stand and supporting feet on the bottom of the body. I'm not sure how well this actually worked - you'll notice in these photos the guitar is being displayed on a regular stand.

This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,899. Whether it'll sell remains to be seen. In the current economic climate, it seems that in the vintage guitar market big money only seems to change hands where the names Fender and Gibson are involved.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

2002 Guild Starfire III reissue

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It's a pity that Guild restricted their production to acoustic guitars, because during their long history, they've been releasing several iconic electric guitars, including this Starfire III - this one being a 2002 reissue of a 1965 model. Its headstock bears the DeArmond logo together with the Guild brand, at the time these guitars had an in-between status, the company having been sold several times and its production moved around in the US and far-east (it is now the property of Fender) - can't tell more, it is not so easy to find precise information about it. 

I love the florentine cutaway, the art-deco pickguard, the old school pickups, the Bigsby-like trem - all that is very classic but sometimes it's good, if it's what music requires.

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild Studio 24 double cutaway 24-fret acoustic guitar

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Here's a rarity from Guild from back in their pre-Fender ownership days. Designed by George Gruhn, it's a Guild Studio 24 circa 1986 and is a full size acoustic guitar with double cutaways and a 24-fret neck. According to the seller on eBay less than 150 of this particular model were produced. Unlike most other cutaway acoustics, full support under the fingerboard is given right up to the 23rd fret providing "clean, ringing notes that sustain in the upper register". The Studio 24 is built with top grade spruce, highly flamed maple backs and sides, inlaid headstock, inlaid ebony fingerboard and complete grained pearloid binding.

This guitar is currently being auctioned on eBay UK with a starting price of £2,750.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild X-100 Blade Runner (again)

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The last time we looked at a Guild X-1000 Blade Runner (as used by Joe Perry in the "Walk This Way" video), it generated quite a lot of discussion in the comments.

Back then I was astounded that someone would ask £7000 for such a guitar (i.e. over $11,300 in US dollars), so in comparison this example, which has been on eBay for the last few weeks, seems to be more conservatively priced with a starting bid of $2,995.

Also, since that last post, I have learned that the Schecter Genesis was indeed copied from this Blade Runner.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild B-301 Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's a classic bass design that you don't see too often these days. Regarded as a reliable workhorse of a bass, the Guild B-301 was in production from 1977 through to 1980. It features a mahogany body with a set 3-piece mahogany neck. Pickups and controls were all mounted to the pickguard, meaning that the body only needed routing on the front side. This was an economical exercise in order to speed up and simplify mass production.

The B-301 was the single pickup model and the two pickup model was named - wait for it - the B-302. This example, with "B-301" on its truss rod cover, has two pickups - but one of these has been added by a previous owner.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1953 Guild X-375 Stratford

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The Guild X-375 looks like a classic but it is quite a strange guitar: did you ever see a hollow body guitar with 3 P90s?

It was actually discontinued in the early 1960s when the times shifted from jazz to rock and loudness brought feedback issues, and such guitars were replaced by thinline semi-hollows... But now it became a very exciting vintage guitar. 

With the 3 pickups come 6 switches on a control plate à la Höfner - usually they are white and it looks better - proposing many pickups combinations, though why 6 are necessary I cannot tell!

Guild has been releasing a whole series of X models since the 1950s, and the X-375 (also called the Stratford for some reason) is the same as the X-350 but with a natural blonde finish (instead of sunburst), reserved to the best tops. And as usually, the Guild stoptail is a perfect piece of design! 

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild DeArmond M-75T

guitarz.blogspot.com

The seller of this DeArmond M-75T on eBay doesn't tell its production year but from its price it's not a vintage instrument from the first DeArmond guitars era - when in the 60s Guild had some of its models produced in Korea under the DeArmond brand (DeArmond being until then Guild's and many other companies' pickups manufacturer). So it's a recent model by the new DeArmond revived by Fender in the 90s, again producing cheaper Guild models.

But according to the company's philosophy, it's supposed to be a faithful reproduction of the early Guild's guitars, here the Bluesbird, with chambered agathis body, DeArmond 2K pickup, Bigsby-like but specific trem, and blue sparkle finish.

bertram

Edit: see comments for extra information.

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Guild X79 with scary 80s paintjob

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Guillaume writes:

Hi GL

This is Guillaume over at the Iconic Guitars blog.

I'm always looking for guitars to feature on the blog and stumbled upon this shocking though captivating Guild X79 with the oddest 80's paintjob. I think it belongs to your blog.

The X79 is an all mahogany guitar and neck with a rosewood fingerboard and 24 frets. The shape is out of nowhere, like if 4 people had decided to pull the body of an SG or a Guild S300 in different directions. As I said, the paint job, with its blue and white lines and curves is so 80's that this guitar belongs to a modern art musem (I wouldn't be surprised if Zakk Wylde put a bid on this one). And as any good 80's shredding board, the Floyd Rose tremolo is de rigueur.

Have a good week end,
Guillaume
http://iconicguitars.blogspot.com/

Ah yes, the dreaded Music Outlet Shop of Cologne. You can usually halve the prices that they give on eBay to get a better idea of a guitar's true value. However, nice find!

G L Wilson

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