"The Guild Starfire Bass" featured in Vintage Guitar Magazin

Not sure if this was already posted, I did at least not see it here yet:
http://www.vintageguitar.com/8058/the-g ... fire-bass/
Ralf

Parks’ band, Swamp Cabbage, plays funky blues on old Guilds exclusively and rehearses in the old Neumann Leathers building in Hoboken!

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8)

SFIV1967 said:

Not sure if this was already posted, I did at least not see it here yet:
http://www.vintageguitar.com/8058/the-g ... fire-bass/
Ralf

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Interesting article. Thanks.

They didn't get everything right, but then we knew that would happen.

The Starfire Bass debuted in ’65

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There are SF basses with serial numbers that were assigned in 1964. Whether any of those were out of the factory in 1964 can be debated.

The original pickups also came from Hagström

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While that is literally true, the article implies that the original pickup was the Bisonic whereas the original pickup was a different pickup, also made by Hagstrom and often confused (by me) with the "Mickey Mouse" pickup.

placement of the pickup

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They got that right. The folks who have played them all prefer the SF I with the bridge/center placement compared to the neck placement.

A two-pickup Starfire Bass was introduced in ’67

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I'm pretty sure there were factory produced SF II's as early as 1965 but they may have been special production rather than a catalog item.

By the early ’70s, the Starfire’s pickup was moved to the neck position, with a Guild humbucker replacing the Hagstrom Bi-Sonic (though neck-position versions with Bi-Sonics stayed in production for some time). Handrests were moved, offset between the pickup and bridge, and the bridge plate acquired an asymmetrical silhouette that referenced the harp-shaped tailpiece found on many Guild electric guitars.

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That has more wrong than right.

The position move on the SF I occurred in 1966. The humbucker replaced the Bisonic in 1970. I am not aware that SF I's with Bisonics and SF II's with humbuckers were being produced simultaneously. The author may be thinking of the Hagstrom humbucker that showed up briefly in the bridge position and paired with a Bisonic. I thought both models (I and II) switched to the humbucker at the same time. The handrest move occurred in 1966 when the PU move happened. The asymmetric bridge was used from sometime in 1967 onward.