3 Rare Guild Amps. Any info, interest, or value?

matsickma

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I've owned two versions of the Guild 200-S amps in my early years of buying old Guild amps. The style of the three amps look what I had assumed was the original design. However there were reports of a two tone color version of the amp which if true would likely have been the mid '50's model.

The models shown have the speaker baffles mounted on a slight angle. Not sure if that was done to slightly reduce the amp width or redirect the sound. The later version would have a plane grey tolex in lieu of the spotted tolex and both speakers were mounted to a common flat baffle facing forward and both speakers were aligned at the same height. The newer version came with the Jensen Concerto speaker which are a significantly better sounding 12" speaker that the Guild badged Oxfords. In fact the Concerto speakers may be one of the best sounding speakers of that era.

One of the interesting features that seems a little odd is that the later solid grey tolex version of the amp came with a storage compartment behind the amp. From the pictures the first amp shows the storage compartment on the back picture. The compartment is on the lower left back side picture. The first amp has it and the other two don't. That is making me think the first amp was made later than the other two. The back "door" to the storage compartment is missing. It was originally mounted with two small hinges on the bottom of the cabinet so you can open the compartment by pulling down the back "door". That would be the location for the foot pedal for the tremelo.

I'm going by memory here but I think the early 200-S chassis allowed stereo operation with two separate channels and the later version had stereo operation of two channels and it included a switch to allow a single input to be simultaneously fed into both channels from a mono signal.

Unfortunately I have the info on those amps buried somewhere and still need to access the old IDE hard drive someday to get the pictures of the old amps and guitars I had years ago.

Cool amps. I tended to like the more aggressive tone of the Guild amps from the mid 60's to 70 so only held on to an old Student amp (20-T?) from the 50's.
M
 
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mavuser

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check page 44 of Hans' book, far right, for a possible photo
 
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Wow thank you everyone for all the invaluable information!!! The amount of knowledge that has been invaluable. I’m headed to the storage unit tomorrow to test them out! I’ll update with how they sound and try and post a video of each. As well as look through a vast amount of photos that were archived in his stuff.
On a side note,They also might be one of the heaviest amps I’ve ever lifted. My back was not ready for these beast lol!
 

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The mid fifties two tone 200s is not at all the same amp. It's not stereo, and has six 50L6gt tubes for the power section. It also has no transformer and runs directly from the wall voltage. It came with two Jenson P12P speakers. I have one waiting to be rebuilt.
 

Rocky

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The mid fifties two tone 200s is not at all the same amp. It's not stereo, and has six 50L6gt tubes for the power section.
Somebody must have gotten a deal on surplus tubes!

It's my understanding that up until the late 50's/early 60's, some of the clubs in lower Manhattan still ran DC power as a legacy from when Edison wired it up. Power transformers only work with AC mains, so musicians would need to use amps that would run on both AC and DC. Danelectros (made in Neptune, NJ) from the period were also power transformerless for the same reason. Oddly, early Ampegs always had power transformers.
 

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Possibly. But the early Guild model 60 had a power transformer and used 50L6 tubes.
I think it might have purely been a cost decision, but who really knows. They bought a lot of surplus.
 
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