Latest photo of the Guild collection on hand

so I take all my Guilds and line them up

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I will attest to the fact that the Guild's shown all have a certain workmanship to them that I like. But I am just curious, how do these guitars sound in comparison to the Gibson ES-335, SG, and Les Paul in your opinion? Have you ever owned one of these Gibson models?

Craig

idealassets said:

so I take all my Guilds and line them up

Click to expand...

I will attest to the fact that the Guild's shown all have a certain workmanship to them that I like. But I am just curious, how do these guitars sound in comparison to the Gibson ES-335, SG, and Les Paul in your opinion? Have you ever owned one of these Gibson models?

Craig

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Hi Craig, I have owned all those Gibson models and more. I will not take anything away from a Gibson. They make fantastic guitars. But I prefer the playability and tone I get from my Guilds. Gibsons are everywhere. I like to find players who use Guilds. Guild flew under the radar for years because they didn't have all the big name R & R players endorsing and using them like Gibson and other brands. You can still get a nice vintage Guild without having to take out a second mortgage. I still have some Gibsons and play them regularly. But I prefer my Guilds. These are just my opinions guys.

Hi Mike,

So how big is your stable? if you don't mind.

Congrats, once again, for that wonderful collection & for having achieved your goal! :wink:

All the best,
B.

Well, my wife always says it's not the size of the stable, but what you can do with it that counts... . Sorry but I couldn't resist that one.

Had been playing mainly Gibsons since 1971 until the early 90s when I got my first Starfire, but still played mainly Gibsons. Many others as well. It's really been the last 10 years or so that I have been playing mainly Guilds. But I also love the old Harmonys, Kay, Silvertone, etc... I always have some of those on hand. I guess the switch started in the early 90s when I changed from playing Rock to mainly Blues and rockabilly so I needed different type guitars. I found that in Guilds, mainly starfires to start. Then I started on the X series Guilds and I love those. So as you can see in my collection photos that I play mainly hollowbodies.

I generally have 16 to 20 guitars around at one time. 10-12 Guilds, a couple Gibsons, a Fender now and then and some old Harmony's etc... I have a 2008 Gibson LP/295 that I absolutely love and will never sell. GOTM for April '08. Only 1000 made. Don't need an 335s anymore with all the starfires, but also have a custom color Blue firebird VII, but the lyre is terrible and throws it out of tune quickly. Have an acoustic as well, not a guild, but I do not use it very often. And that's my story. If anyone is tired of me posting the pix of my collection let me know. I might not stop, but let me know anyway. I always appreciate the nice comments left.
Thanks to you all. MB

Mike (and others),

Great photos of some impressive collections. Thanks for sharing!

Had been playing mainly Gibsons since 1971 until the early 90s when I got my first Starfire

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I suspect that you must be quite good at playing these, and as well, must be not bad at picking a guitar to buy.

On a slightly different topic, during all the glory days of rock I pocketed a good amount of $ on drums, and I wasn't into it just for the playing, I liked working it. As the antithesis, suddenly I became interested in a more acoustic sound for my own listening. After playing rock in clubs (Aerosmyth, Ted Nugent, Bad Co., etc) for about 2-5 nights a week I preferred to listen to Emmylou Harris, Leo Kottke, Herb Pederson, Lind hondstant, and also play the softer material on acoustic guitar.

I owned a really nice, virtually new, 1997 maple Starfire III. I really regret selling it, but never got around to working out the material for that guitar.

3 years later I gave noticed that the cost of a nice slightly used Starfire has increased a good bit. I seriously doubt if they will ever drop in value any time soon. Now If I want another one it will cost me about $400+ more than just a short time ago, according to my calculations.

Craig

One more time: VOW!!!
I really hope I will be able to visit you one of these days.

BTW, I didn't know that you had a Firebird VII.
I love FBs and nearly bought a custom shop 65' reverse FB-V RI a few months ago.
What exact model do you have?

idealassets said:

Had been playing mainly Gibsons since 1971 until the early 90s when I got my first Starfire

Click to expand...

I suspect that you must be quite good at playing these, and as well, must be not bad at picking a guitar to buy.

On a slightly different topic, during all the glory days of rock I pocketed a good amount of $ on drums, and I wasn't into it just for the playing, I liked working it. As the antithesis, suddenly I became interested in a more acoustic sound for my own listening. After playing rock in clubs (Aerosmyth, Ted Nugent, Bad Co., etc) for about 2-5 nights a week I preferred to listen to Emmylou Harris, Leo Kottke, Herb Pederson, Lind hondstant, and also play the softer material on acoustic guitar.

I owned a really nice, virtually new, 1997 maple Starfire III. I really regret selling it, but never got around to working out the material for that guitar.

3 years later I gave noticed that the cost of a nice slightly used Starfire has increased a good bit. I seriously doubt if they will ever drop in value any time soon. Now If I want another one it will cost me about $400+ more than just a short time ago, according to my calculations.

Craig

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Craig,

I don't know what you sold your '97 SF-3 for, but you should be able to pick up a similar vintage SF-4 for $1000-$1200, and a similar vintage SF-2/3 for under 1K as I see several completed listings on Ebay in those ranges. If you want vintage you will pay a little more, but there are many vintage models selling for $1400 - $1750. You can also keep lurking and posting out here, as there are many enablers on LTG that will help you out. Good luck!

I don't know what you sold your '97 SF-3 for

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I sold it 4 months ago for $1250 including cost of postage. The condition of the guitar was "as-new", but the original owner switched the case from what they showed in their pictures before sending it to me. It was hard to prove, and it isn't the first time its happened either. Unfortunately a lot folks cannot travel 1000's of miles to buy a guitar sight-seen, so you can only hope for the best.

After the ebay fees I made out "even" from what I originally paid for it. The whole time I was wondering what a Gibson ES-335 might sound like compared to that Starfire III, since I have not seen one being played locally ever in the last 3 years, since I have begun to pay attention to this type of thing. Here is the order of most often played in central Michigan: 1.Stratocaster 2.Telecaster 3.Les Paul 4. Gibson SG 5.An occasional Gretsch or Rickenbacker. I have never seen a Guild Starfire being played in Michigan, only at last year's LMG III in Hartford, CT did anyone play one.

Meanwhile some folks definitely do know their guitars out there.

Droolworthy pics guys!

I salute you guys! What a GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome)

Old pic. I like Blondes.

Nice pic. Nobody does blond like Guild. Nobody.

Wow, it's been eight months since I posted this thread. I thought it was dead. Anyway my collection posted on the first page has changed quite a bit since those days. I guess I had 1,2,3, 11 Guilds at that time. Three of those have been sold BTW. But as you can see by my signature my collection is ever growing and changing. The problem now is that I do not have a room in my house large enough to get a photo of them all. So since I would agree with Dave that no one does blonds like Guild, here is a photo of my current blonds. Please excuse the photo, it's the best I could do with the un-natural light in my music at 5:30 AM this morning.


What you see in this photo from top left to right is my 1953 X175, with replacement guard, 1958 T100B special order with Dual rare Dearmond pickups, they are not the Dynasonics but those found on the 1960 Starfires, 1959 X550, 1960 CE100B, and on the bottom 1961 T100DPB with added Guildsby, 1961 X175B and on the right is my NS A-150 Savoy. Once again friends, sorry for the blurry photo but it's the best my camera will do in this light. Cheers and happy holidays to you all. MB

Very nice, and every time I see the list in your signature I'm very impressed.
Thanks for the pic!