Photos of New York era Guilds 1953-56

[parker_knoll]

@ Walter

can u show me a pic of the base of the guitar where the Bigsby is attached? did u have to move the strap pin?

 

[Walter Broes]

did u have to move the strap pin?

Yes, and drill new holes for the Bigsby vibratos as well.

 

[zizala]

Those two look great WB!

I think I heard you and your band somewhere on YouTube and you all sounded great too.....
I love your "WB" decal....

I do notice that these two 17" bodies from the very early 60's appear to have a slightly different shape and proportions from those of the 50's.....has anyone else noticed this? Did Guild make a change in tooling?

z

 

[Walter Broes]

Thanks! A couple of changes - the early NYC bodies have a different shape (Like Smiert Spionam's beautiful guitar above), then there's another body shape that seems to appear around the move to Hoboken around 56, and then around '61, '62, the body shape changed to what you see in my pic, and those are considerably bigger ànd deeper than the ones before that - not a subtle difference. It does seem to be the shape Guild stuck with all through Hoboken, Westerly, and even Corona.

I have a late 50's X175 as well, and that has the smaller shape, bigger butt, smaller waist, and less depth to the body.

 

[parker_knoll]

there's definitely a different body shape between 60s Starfires and the later Westerly and Corona ones (if there were any Corona ones).

By the way, Walter, sorry for another question - did you try fitting any other knobs to the X175? I need to get some knobs for mine. There was a set of clear vintage guild ones on the 'bay but they went for huge money in the end.

 

[Walter Broes]

Zizala, here's a pic of the 59 I found buried in my photobucket album - it has a different silhouette than the '62, and is less deep :

 

[zizala]

Thanks for the view of the '59 Walter.....

Yes....that shows what I've noticed as the late 50's, maybe the first couple years of 60's 17" body....with narrower depth and deeper cutaway than my '54 X-150 for instance.

I had and sold a '59 X-150 just recently so was able to see the first two versions side by side.

But your two X-175's showed me the third version.

I've been happily exploring Guild electric archtops from the earliest of the New York era into and up to Hoboken 1961 so far......your guitars have me thinking I ought to add at least a couple more years to that!

ziz

 

[chazmo]

Careful, ziz... That never ends.

My take on this is that the crew in Hoboken certainly did a lot of exploration and experimentation over the years which certainly did not end in the early '60s. Even on the acoustic front, there are major changes we see over the years even within a given model.

These days, the new Guilds (acoustics, of course) are also seeing a lot of creativity applied to their design and construction, but often the goal is to return to an earlier spec or whatever and improve on it -- with tradition in mind. That clearly was not a factor in the Hoboken days.

I give Hoboken an enormous amount of credit. From what I understand, it was really quite a small shop, and I think these guys were given a lot of leverage, whether management intended it or not.

 

[hansmoust]

Hello everybody,

Over the years we've talked a little bit about the varying body shapes. Recently somebody e-mailed me about it and I took a little time to express some of my views on this. I guess I could post a part of my response to him here as well:

As far as the change of body shapes is concerned, that's a somewhat more complicated story because it not only happened during the early '60s but all through Guild's history. The changes were not always as obvious though but if you look at guitars from the various periods ( not just the Venetian cutaway archtops) you will see that the shapes vary a lot all through the '50s, '60s and '70s.

I do not think there was an actual 'reason' for the changes and over the years I've come to the conclusion that for the most part it was caused by 'sloppy' copying the existing shapes when increased production dictated the fabrication of new collars. For the Italian workers at Guild, the final shape was something that had to be approximate. It's a mentality thing that you see a lot with workers from Mediterranean countries. They don't work with written down specs. They're very good at 'eyeballing'. You may have seen it with high quality concert guitars from Spanish origin. These people didn't work with molds. They shaped the sides free-hand and you can very often see it.

Obviously, the sides were not bent free-hand at Guild. They had bending devices for that but the final shape of the guitar was dictated by the shape of the collar, in which the body was put together. When new collars were fabricated, they were not always exact copies of the older ones.

After the move from Hoboken to Westerly at the end of the '60s a lot of new collars were made and the change of shape for most models was even more dramatic than the change that took place during the early '60s. For you the change during the early '60s may have been more obvious since your main interest may be in archtops. By the early '70s the focus was not so much on archtops and actually, there were't that many left in the Guild line.

I believe that the change during the early '70s was a more deliberate decision to make the curves somewhat less sharp, to cut down on 'cracked sides' during the construction proces. This makes the guitars from the '70s somewhat more 'bulbous' looking; less gracefull, not as 'waisted' as the earlier guitars.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

 

[AlohaJoe]

I've been really enjoying this thread... thanks for the information!

This makes the guitars from the '70s somewhat more 'bulbous' looking; less gracefull, not as 'waisted' as the earlier guitars.
Sincerely, Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

Coincidentally, players from the 70s weren't quite as wasted as they were in the 60's either.

 

[zizala]

Thanks Hans and everyone for the great thoughts and info....

Besides the variations in body shapes, I've noted some differences in top thicknesses and bracing size when comparing the early NY Guilds to the late 50's Hobokens.

The difference in construction between my '56 and '60 CE-100's is quite apparent....

.....the shape is the same, but the '60 has a shallower body, has a noticeably thinner top and I believe has lighter braces.

The '56 is "stoutly built" with thick top and big braces..... (kind of a tank)....less of the honk'n plywood top acoustic tone but more feedback resistance and sustain. As nice as these two are, the heavy '56 is a better electric guitar to me anyway.
I've learned a lot from these two.....

So I'd say and agree that lots of thinking and trying and well designed messing around was happening at that time as Guild tried to build guitars that could run with or surpass the competition.

ziz

 

[Walter Broes]

By the way, Walter, sorry for another question - did you try fitting any other knobs to the X175? I need to get some knobs for mine. There was a set of clear vintage guild ones on the 'bay but they went for huge money in the end.

Missed this post entirely...sorry! I think it's incredible FMIC can't be bothered to make Guild knobs (and some other parts) available again, they obviously have the moulds.

I never put any different knobs on my guitars (the guitar with the big black knobs in this thread came to me that way - they're echoplex knobs, but fairly close to the Ampeg-style "stove knobs" the guitar would have had originally), but if yours has split shaft pots, you'd need knobs for U.S. split shafts - beware, Asian ones are different and don't fit.

 

[hansmoust]

OK folks! Here are some photos of two of my favorite sunburst finishes.

The first one is on a New York era M-75 Aristocrat:

The second one is an M-75 Aristocrat from the second half of the '50s:

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

 

[MojoTooth]

OK folks! Here are some photos of two of my favorite sunburst finishes.

The first one is on a New York era M-75 Aristocrat:

The second one is an M-75 Aristocrat from the second half of the '50s:

I WANT I WANT!!!!

 

[fab467]

Nice! I especially like the second pic... 8)

 

[zizala]

Two wonderful M-75's Hans....thanks for the views!

Both these sunbursts are attractive to say the least.......though the lighter one is very appealing....
My '57 CE-100 and '58 M-65 have that "tea burst"....or whatever its best called.

I do enjoy seeing that the bridges are true to what was typical for the larger archtops of the years they were built.....the NY model having the straight saddle without the notched compensation, and the early Hoboken with the first of the graduated compensated types.

Such good stuff......now I'm inspired to put this big tub of an L-7 down and play my M-65 while daydreaming about an Aristocrat.....

ziz

 

[skinny]

Hans,
Thanks for sharing those 2 gorgeous guitars :shock: !!
I would imagine paint(type), the age and the wood all have a factor in the way
those sunsursts look now. Then the obvious is how heavy the burst was sprayed
back in the day.
I agree with zizala calling them "tea bursts"
Time to throw my hat in the ring and start looking for an M-75 8)

skinny

 

[hansmoust]

Time to throw my hat in the ring and start looking for an M-75

skinny

Hello skinny,

You would think that in this day and age you would see M-75s coming up for sale but so far I haven't seen any decent ones for sale.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

 

[jimmyl51]

Hans and everybody,

I believe the bottom line is that the vintage dealers are aiming for prices that are so expensive they are basically trying to get rid of the 'players' versus aiming only in a way for the collector market which is sad. The prices that I am seeing for the late 50's Aristocrats that are out there for sale at the present time from dealers are IMHO crazy........ jim in Maine p.s. at least the M-65's are not this crazy YET..........and the key word is YET ;>).......

 

[F30]

Anyone see this late 50's Aristocrat clip ... I'm not sure I'm into this guys style of playing ...
he does seem to be having fun though ... and I do like the guitar.
http://serialnumberall.com/mid-week-phi ... crat-01187