I knew ya'll'd be talking about this one on here sooner or later. And, yeah it does look heavily used. I too noticed the bridge all the way down. It "looks" like the action is about right, but doesn't leave much margin. You might have seller measure string height. The other thing is that the neck might have a fair amount of relief in it, in which case bringing it close to straight or 100% straight might give you some more bridge height.
The funkiest looking thing is the shot of the neck heel. You can't really tell what's going on there, if it's just a gone-funky binding cap on it, or some sort of piece of wood or who knows what added there. The glue joints around the neck there look sort of sloppy too and it's hard to tell it that's just a binding degradation issue or something else. It's possible this thing may have had an amateurish neck reset, which could either be failing or could have been poorly seated, resulting in less back angle and higher action/lower bridge height.
If it were mine, I'd probably go the cheaper route and have the binding reglued rather than replaced. Having a luthier make the complicated multi/cross ply binding is going to be big, big money and it'll look too fresh on such a worn guitar. If it's mostly there, it can be tacked back down with glue and at least give you the peace of mind of not worrying about breaking it off by brushing against it.
An aside on binding:
I've got a '67 Gretsch Tennessean that's binding was crumbling big time, loose in a few spots and would just flake away if you touched it. It's a great guitar and oddly has a solid neck joint where most of them have started to give way. I made a week-long project of arresting the binding loss.
Knowing that I'd never get around to spending the bucks on a re-bind and would also not play the guitar much with the existing binding so fragile, I decided to shore it up. I ran super glue very carefully over just the binding, filling flush any craters and tacking back down any loose spots. It would soak in quite a bit, as it had become so porous from its disintegration process. I'd just do one part at a time and then let it rest with that part horizontal until dried. I hung it from the ceiling by a string from the strap button when necessary. It was slow going and a couple of the bigger craters/fissures took several applications to bring flush. It worked out well, though and cost me like a dollar in super glue, lol. It still looks as cracked and discolored as it did before, but it's rock hard and I don't have to worry about it now. Since it's both sealed on the outside and super-glue infused throughout, I'm hoping that I've slowed or stopped the process altogether. Something to keep in mind. The old Guild binding does a lot of shrinking and it's common to see the binding pulling away at the waists and cutaways, even curling up at the ends if they've come loose, true of even '70s models. I haven't seen any that were absolutely crumbling like Kluson tuner buttons or the Gretsch stuff (but haven't handled many 50s Guilds), so you probably don't need to do what I did, but a lot can be done by a competent luthier, a heat source and some super glue.
I don't have good close-ups of the binding, but here's the guitar:
The funkiest looking thing is the shot of the neck heel. You can't really tell what's going on there, if it's just a gone-funky binding cap on it, or some sort of piece of wood or who knows what added there. The glue joints around the neck there look sort of sloppy too and it's hard to tell it that's just a binding degradation issue or something else. It's possible this thing may have had an amateurish neck reset, which could either be failing or could have been poorly seated, resulting in less back angle and higher action/lower bridge height.
If it were mine, I'd probably go the cheaper route and have the binding reglued rather than replaced. Having a luthier make the complicated multi/cross ply binding is going to be big, big money and it'll look too fresh on such a worn guitar. If it's mostly there, it can be tacked back down with glue and at least give you the peace of mind of not worrying about breaking it off by brushing against it.
An aside on binding:
I've got a '67 Gretsch Tennessean that's binding was crumbling big time, loose in a few spots and would just flake away if you touched it. It's a great guitar and oddly has a solid neck joint where most of them have started to give way. I made a week-long project of arresting the binding loss.
Knowing that I'd never get around to spending the bucks on a re-bind and would also not play the guitar much with the existing binding so fragile, I decided to shore it up. I ran super glue very carefully over just the binding, filling flush any craters and tacking back down any loose spots. It would soak in quite a bit, as it had become so porous from its disintegration process. I'd just do one part at a time and then let it rest with that part horizontal until dried. I hung it from the ceiling by a string from the strap button when necessary. It was slow going and a couple of the bigger craters/fissures took several applications to bring flush. It worked out well, though and cost me like a dollar in super glue, lol. It still looks as cracked and discolored as it did before, but it's rock hard and I don't have to worry about it now. Since it's both sealed on the outside and super-glue infused throughout, I'm hoping that I've slowed or stopped the process altogether. Something to keep in mind. The old Guild binding does a lot of shrinking and it's common to see the binding pulling away at the waists and cutaways, even curling up at the ends if they've come loose, true of even '70s models. I haven't seen any that were absolutely crumbling like Kluson tuner buttons or the Gretsch stuff (but haven't handled many 50s Guilds), so you probably don't need to do what I did, but a lot can be done by a competent luthier, a heat source and some super glue.
I don't have good close-ups of the binding, but here's the guitar:
