fronobulax
Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 24,800
- Reaction score
- 8,931
- Location
- Central Virginia, USA
- Guild Total
- 5
Continuing this from here where mgod is trying to sell a nice SF I.
This is my understanding of the visually observed changes in the appearance of a Starfire I from 1964-1970. They are ordered by serial number, even though it is the case that Guilds did not always get built or leave the factory in serial number order. At some point I can annotate this list with the first, last or both serial number(s) I have observed and it would be most useful if additions or corrections included a serial number. I am making a presumption that once a change was made it was not reverted so if a configuration appears, disappears and reappears (in the sense of serial number order) we either have a case where the serial numbers were not chronological or the presumption is incorrect.
I'm doing this to unclutter mgod's listing and because I am not always as right as I think I am nor is mavuser always as wrong as I think but sometime we need discussion to resolve that.
In the beginning there was confusion and instruments had necks with 1964 serial numbers, a Bisonic, a Mickey Mouse or another unnamed Hagstrom in the bridge position, straight bridge, black plastic saddles, parallel finger rests and no suck switch.
Next there was a period with the same configuration except only the Mickey Mouse was used.
Next was a time with the same configuration except the Bisonic was standard and remained so until 1970 when it was replaced by the Guild humbucker.
It may be that there was not enough consistency to actually establish this first three as separate configurations.
It is not clear which happened next but the black saddles were replaced with rosewood and the pickup was moved to the neck position. Note that the finger rests remained parallel.
Next the finger rests were moved to the offset position.
Finally the bridge plate was replaced with a harp shaped plate and the suck switch was added. This happened circa BA-145x and BA-147x (mid-'67) and the changes were introduced at the same time. This remained the standard configuration through 1970.
This is my understanding of the visually observed changes in the appearance of a Starfire I from 1964-1970. They are ordered by serial number, even though it is the case that Guilds did not always get built or leave the factory in serial number order. At some point I can annotate this list with the first, last or both serial number(s) I have observed and it would be most useful if additions or corrections included a serial number. I am making a presumption that once a change was made it was not reverted so if a configuration appears, disappears and reappears (in the sense of serial number order) we either have a case where the serial numbers were not chronological or the presumption is incorrect.
I'm doing this to unclutter mgod's listing and because I am not always as right as I think I am nor is mavuser always as wrong as I think but sometime we need discussion to resolve that.
In the beginning there was confusion and instruments had necks with 1964 serial numbers, a Bisonic, a Mickey Mouse or another unnamed Hagstrom in the bridge position, straight bridge, black plastic saddles, parallel finger rests and no suck switch.
Next there was a period with the same configuration except only the Mickey Mouse was used.
Next was a time with the same configuration except the Bisonic was standard and remained so until 1970 when it was replaced by the Guild humbucker.
It may be that there was not enough consistency to actually establish this first three as separate configurations.
It is not clear which happened next but the black saddles were replaced with rosewood and the pickup was moved to the neck position. Note that the finger rests remained parallel.
Next the finger rests were moved to the offset position.
Finally the bridge plate was replaced with a harp shaped plate and the suck switch was added. This happened circa BA-145x and BA-147x (mid-'67) and the changes were introduced at the same time. This remained the standard configuration through 1970.