Fender sells Guild.

I'm want CMG to succeed and build great Guild guitars in Oxnard. I really do.

Neal, you asked a great question. A real head scratcher...

I can assure you that when the management of New Hartford decided to build Guilds, they did not receive a lot of guidance or assistance from folks in Tacoma. In fact, they spent a good part of 2008 building Guild prototypes. I believe that Fender corporate had luthiers that helped guide the specs, etc., but I think it was the people in New Hartford who were already there who really made it happen by figuring out the process through a lot of trial and error. It is also worth noting that Fender was not confident in Tacoma's ability to keep up with corporate change orders on the guitars, and I think it came down to some disappointments that opened the door for New Hartford, hungry as they were seeing the writing on the wall w.r.t. Ovation, to become Guild's steward.

I think that this transition of Guild to Cordoba might be a problem because of no corporate-level continuity. I.e., no long-term Guild folks overseeing the transition. Perhaps some of the Fender folks who have overseen Guild through the years might be involved somehow during the transition. I don't know.

As many of you have said, we're are all talking guesses here. The news is only really hours old news that Fender (TPG Growth) has divested itself of the brand, and frankly I think that's a very positive piece of news which I'm still digesting. I can't say anything much about Cordoba since I'm ignorant. I only make note of how important it is to THEM because they've put it very clearly on the news section of their website and have made the various announcements publicly about it. Maybe we'll find them to be a bit more open to discovery by LTG than Fender was. I would also note for the record that it was only due to the culture in New Hartford that we were able to know so much directly about the people and products over the last 5 years.

In summary, despite the personal pain of this change, I would like to wish Cordoba Music Group the best as the new stewards of Guild. I hope they come to know us well eventually, as we are the biggest fans of the brand anywhere!

davismanLV said:

... there are worse places to build guitars.

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I also found this here: https://www.cordobaguitars.com/blog.php?postid=1403 "Oxnard’s mild, stable climate makes it a favorable location for guitar building."
Ralf

My wife lent her classical guitar to my stepson a few weeks ago which means I need to buy a new Classical Guitar. I had pretty much decided on a Cordoba.... coincidence??? :wink-new:

Synchro said:

I don't mean to be argumentative, but Fender is not all bad. They kept Guild going in one form or another since '95. Remember, FMIC was basically an employee buyout when CBS decided to quit the guitar biz'. I've spoken to people that were there for the transition and they said that everything changed for the better at that moment. For a while Fender had no U.S. production facilities and they bootstrapped themselves back to true viability.

They are far from perfect, but they are far better than the CBS owned entity that charge $800 for a Strat so heavy it could hardly be played on a strap, back in '79. I was a teacher in a major Fender and Gibson dealer back in those days and, believe me, it was grim. Gibson was pandering to the low end of the market by devaluing their US made instruments into something that looked like it came from an underdeveloped country and Fender guitars were scienced down to the last penny with inferior pickup windings, etc.

FMIC has done their share of cost accounting, but they are pretty good about having instruments that are close to vintage specs. Their Vintage RI amps are a bargain, IMO, with a printed circuit board for the low-power portion of the circuit and point to point wiring for the power tubes. I wish we could go back in time and have the economy we had back in the old days, but it's not realistic to expect that manufacturing will return to the US unless something happens to drastically reduce the cost of living here. I have hardwired, pt-2-pt amps, but they are made by Winfield Thomas, not some factory that can kick out hundreds of units per day. It is what it is and FMIC is an much a product of the times as they are a product of some misguided philosophy of their own making. Everyone has to remain profitable and there are no points given for good intentions, artistic integrity or faithfulness to doing things the way that they did in the past.

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I don't take you as argumentative at all, it's all discussion from different viewpoints which I enjoy. What I meant by that comment is the irony of Ren Ferguson being stuck with a company who seems nearly incapable (or unwilling) of building quality acoustic guitars with their name on the head stock. All Fender seems to care about are things that end in "-caster".

Watasha said:

What I meant by that comment is the irony of Ren Ferguson being stuck with a company who seems nearly incapable (or unwilling) of building quality acoustic guitars with their name on the head stock. All Fender seems to care about are things that end in "-caster".

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Well, we need to see what they do with the Fender Acoustic Custom Shop, means if they continue the concept. I guess those new NH Fenders were quite good. Not that I ever would have bought one...
Ralf

Watasha said:

I don't take you as argumentative at all, it's all discussion from different viewpoints which I enjoy. What I meant by that comment is the irony of Ren Ferguson being stuck with a company who seems nearly incapable (or unwilling) of building quality acoustic guitars with their name on the head stock. All Fender seems to care about are things that end in "-caster".

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Part of the trouble with FMIC, is that they don't have any ideas, period. Any new innovations in guitar development stopped when Leo sold the company back in '64. (And Leo stuck to solid bodies, striving to do one thing well, rather than trying to be everything.) All they've really done since is new colors, throwing different pickups in the same guitars, etc., no really substantive changes. Look at what Leo did post-Fender, with the new designs for Musicman and then G&L.
They are a marketing firm, not a creative firm. But they only know how to market for the masses, not for the select.



(And Tom, we're just having fun with the name Oxnard. It looks like a lovely place. But, until we know anything concrete about the future of Guild, we're just whistling in the wind. And Oxnard is a name tailor (not Taylor) made for comedy. Like Slartibartfast.)

killdeer43 said:

Here's a link to Oxnard. Be sure to check the section on climate. Looks like a swell place to live and build guitars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxnard,_California Joe

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Makes you (ok maybe not you, but me) wonder what they're waiting for to lay a few acres of vineyards up in this sucker.... (who cares about guitars anyway?) layful:

Climate and soil conditions described are ideal on the paper, and we all know they can make a mean red over there....
Why stick to strawberries?.. Diversify! :wink-new:

bluesypicky said:

Makes you (ok maybe not you, but me) wonder what they're waiting for to lay a few acres of vineyards up in this sucker.... (who cares about guitars anyway?) layful:

Climate and soil conditions described are ideal on the paper, and we all know they can make a mean red over there....
Why stick to strawberries?.. Diversify! :wink-new:

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So, now..... that's an idea!! Instead of buying flats of strawberries on the off-ramps.... we could buy bottles of wine? I LIKE IT!! Good thinking, Pascal!!

According to Wikipedia Oxnard was named after Henry Oxnard, an early investor and citizen. The name conjures up some kind of animal based gel or cream, one step above Ox-lard. Probably smells better too.

Point about relocating noted but it really isn't an option for some people. There are people who are going to live and die in New England and if that means they have to flip burgers and eat dog food rather than build guitars then that is what is going to happen. This seems to be something built into the core of their being. For example I get a sense of peace when I see a landscape with white birch trees and rocks deposited by glaciers. Although I understand that the West Coast is a wonderful place and I have enjoyed my visits I just cannot overcome the sense that it is not and never will be Home. This is entirely irrational but I have met enough people that feel this way that I would not expect a New Englander to move across country just to make guitars. IMO. YMMV. Sorry Tom ;-)

If Cordoba's distribution system is robust it could be an easy transition to plug the Korea and China factories in it and keep supplying the GADs and NS models, if that is what they want. Since FMIC owns the plant, I don't see the same thing happening with the ARCOS line. I think we have seen the last of those.

As for US production, I don't see good things happening immediately since Cordoba needs to develop or hire the knowledge to build something to the Guild design and the current facilities do not seem capable of production volumes in the thousands at current size and staffing. I expect Cordoba to announce something that shows an increase in US capability but I don't know what that is. I work as contractor scum for the government and one of the things that happens a lot with bottom feeding contractor firms is that the incumbent loses a contract, lays off all the people working on it and the winner makes job offers to the newly laid off employees and lower salaries (because the incumbent lost because they cost too much). I can imagine Cordoba buying NH and then restaffing it at lower wages although I don't think that is likely unless they have immediate plans to build something in addition to Guild there. I kind of hope they don't because of the high "human cost".

davismanLV said:

So, now..... that's an idea!! Instead of buying flats of strawberries on the off-ramps.... we could buy bottles of wine? I LIKE IT!! Good thinking, Pascal!!

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You know you can count on me to think outside the (guitar) box! The thought goes well with your avatar too.... :laughing:

davismanLV said:

an ugly and awkward name, like "Oxnard"

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You US folks are going to have to help me out here.... What makes "Oxnard" ugly / awkward? And would you also say "Oxford" is an ugly / awkward city name? I just don't get it in all seriousness, but I know it's got to be a first language cultural thing, so explain away! Curious BP (and always on topic)

Watasha said:

I don't take you as argumentative at all, it's all discussion from different viewpoints which I enjoy. What I meant by that comment is the irony of Ren Ferguson being stuck with a company who seems nearly incapable (or unwilling) of building quality acoustic guitars with their name on the head stock. All Fender seems to care about are things that end in "-caster".

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I certainly agree with you on that. Acoustic guitars, of any sort, and the Fender name don't seem to mix. I'm tempted to say that it's like oil and water, but it's probably more like water and a grease fire.

Heaven knows, they've tried out a lot of different approaches over the years. The Coronado was an interesting idea and, having owned one myself, it wasn't all that bad of a guitar. The current Coronado, BTW, is a slug I couldn't imagine playing for any length of time without shoulder pain to the max.

They made some seriously good arch tops when Jimmy D'Aquisto was working with the; and then he died of an epileptic seizure on a business trip to Corona. Talk about cruel ironies. I've seen and heard a Fender D'Aquisto and was quite impressed.

I can't speak much about flattops, in 48 years of playing I've owned precisely one, although my ex wife's Alvarez 000 sized guitar spent some time in my hands.

AcornHouse said:

Part of the trouble with FMIC, is that they don't have any ideas, period. Any new innovations in guitar development stopped when Leo sold the company back in '64. (And Leo stuck to solid bodies, striving to do one thing well, rather than trying to be everything.) All they've really done since is new colors, throwing different pickups in the same guitars, etc., no really substantive changes. Look at what Leo did post-Fender, with the new designs for Musicman and then G&L.
They are a marketing firm, not a creative firm. But they only know how to market for the masses, not for the select.

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Fender, these days, is much like Harley Davidson, they build time-travel devices so that you can re-live an era long gone. They've tried to bring new designs to the marketplace but the consumers call the shots, in the long run, and consumers want Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters, Jaguars, P basses and Jazz basses. Fender, IMHO, has a tiered marketing plan which allows consumers to buy in at every level from $100 to $5,000 and up. You can buy a Squier Bullet Strat and walk your way up market until you reach a Custom Shop, ultra relic'd Strat with pickups hand wound by Isabel Ybarra and wood taken from the remains of Noah's Ark. The meat of their market is in building "reissues" of guitars from the days of yore. People will pay good money to pretend that they are somehow back in the '50s or '60s unwrapping a future classic. I don't blame them, my Gretsch and Guild collection is seasoned liberally with nostalgia for instruments I wish I could've bought in my youth.

A friend that deals in vintage guitars calls these time machines and I think he nailed it. I once bought a Fender Japan RI of a '66 Jaguar just because that was the year I started playing and back in that day my dream guitar would have been a Fender Jaguar. Ultimately, in spite of a spate of costly upgrades to the pickups and hardware, it turned out to be a miserable instrument that, by design, tended to have bridge stability issues. It left me in the lurch at a gig when I had to limp through the last two sets out of tune and beyond the scope of field fixes. It was sold shortly thereafter. The lesson I learned is that Leo knocked it out of the park with the Strat and the Tele, he built some wonderful amps along the way, but that's as far as I'm willing to follow. As I speak, I own a set nect Tele with humbuckers and a MIJ Mustang bass, plus several Fender amps and I don't really play on buying anything else. Over the years I could have bought any production Fender I wanted and I ended up with a $600, MIK, Tele . . . by choice!

I think that Fender is doomed to forever live in the past. The diversification of FMIC makes sense. They have Jackson, so they can surf whatever waves of '80s nostalgia that may come along. They can ride out the Fender nostalgia wave until all of us will require massive doses of Aricept to even remember what a Strat is and they have the Gretsch marketing and manufacturing agreement to give them entree into the archtop world. They still have a lot of clout in the electric bass market and they have a great line of amps which, IMHO, are about as good as you will find for a mass-market product.

I don't think that they are likely to ever go anywhere with acoustic guitars, at least under the Fender logo. Guild was probably their best effort. If they ever do I'll tie it as a sign that Harley Davidson is moving into the observed trials motorcycle market in a big way.

AcornHouse said:

Part of the trouble with FMIC, is that they don't have any ideas, period. Any new innovations in guitar development stopped when Leo sold the company back in '64. (And Leo stuck to solid bodies, striving to do one thing well, rather than trying to be everything.) All they've really done since is new colors, throwing different pickups in the same guitars, etc., no really substantive changes. Look at what Leo did post-Fender, with the new designs for Musicman and then G&L.
They are a marketing firm, not a creative firm. But they only know how to market for the masses, not for the select.



(And Tom, we're just having fun with the name Oxnard. It looks like a lovely place. But, until we know anything concrete about the future of Guild, we're just whistling in the wind. And Oxnard is a name tailor (not Taylor) made for comedy. Like Slartibartfast.)

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That's a good point. Gibson does the same thing to a degree with the Les Paul but they at least seem to have more creativity than Fender.

SFIV1967 said:

Well, we need to see what they do with the Fender Acoustic Custom Shop, means if they continue the concept. I guess those new NH Fenders were quite good. Not that I ever would have bought one...
Ralf

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Ralf, I had the pleasure of playing a few of the Fender Custom Shop guitars at The Music Zoo near me last year, and they were very nice guitars indeed. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.




Note the Waverly tuners on this one, something that FMIC never thought the Guild Orpheums worthy of.



Here's the other model they had, also with Waverlys





Both of them were very nice, but were priced around $4000 IIRC. That electric style headstock looks dreadful on an acoustic too, IMHO. If you ever had to sell one of them, imagine the bath you'd take! Probably the only acoustic guitars out there with worse resale value than Guilds.

fronobulax said:

IMO. YMMV. Sorry Tom ;-)

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No worries, frono. I'm actually AGAINST more people moving to CA. They already have WAY too many people. So if you and the rest of the right-coasters are fine staying there, I'm good. Just ONE reason for my leaving Southern CA was that there's just TOO MANY PEOPLE. When you cram that many people in too little space, it starts getting hostile. Not to mention the expense.

I just didn't know what kind of image people were conjuring up when they thought of Oxnard. So I wanted to set the record straight. It's BEAUTIFUL!!

Pascal, I think most people think of nasty bull parts when they hear the name "Oxnard". Oxford sounds British, and sophisticated. OxNARD sounds pedestrian and like weird animal parts. At least to me. Call it what you like, though. It's a lovely place to build guitars. Now if only someone would show them how Guilds are built...... maybe we could send them links to youtube videos??

I just wonder, is there anyone among us who is unsettled about Fender (TPG Growth) selling off Guild... ?

We've lambasted FMIC's stewardship of Guild so many times over the years since I've been here (and long before). Through LMG events and contacts I'd made from those events, I'd come to see some hopeful signs for Guild, and meet some people from Fender who were big fans of Guild, some with longstanding associations. But, it's always been clear that Guild was never even close to being FMIC's bread and butter. The fact that they were even tasking New Hartford with building Fender acoustics always made my skin crawl because it just never fit my view of what New Hartford's raison d'être was!

It would be hugely ironic, though perhaps I wish it would happen, if Cordoba had an eye on the New Hartford facility. Wouldn't that be amazing? I'm sure the folks in New Hartford would welcome such a possibility, although I think it's unlikely. Has anyone contacted Cordoba to ask / suggest such a thing?

It seems that the small business ownership model works better for guitar manufacturing than predatory corporate ownership. Martin is still a family business. Taylor is a two-man partnership. From the top down there is passion for guitars that never makes it into the big corporate boardrooms.

I'm allowing myself some cautiously optimistic hopes.

' Strang

(sent on the contact form for Cordoba Guitars)
As a fan of Guild in general and the factory at New Hartford in particular, would you consider production out of the New Hartford plant? It is already tooled up to make fantastic guitars, the workers there are extraordinarily talented and are intimately familiar with the designs. There would be no need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak and their ability to create Guild Special Run limited edition guitars is well known and fits in with your business model. Everything Cordoba needs to make American Guilds is already in place and there would be no need to reverse engineer classic Guild models when the craftsmen in New Hartford have already perfected them for you.
Why have yet another lull in production when Guild seems to finally be getting the recognition that the brand deserves?
Thanks,
Steve Phillips

Default said:

(sent on the contact form for Cordoba Guitars)
As a fan of Guild in general and the factory at New Hartford in particular, would you consider production out of the New Hartford plant? It is already tooled up to make fantastic guitars, the workers there are extraordinarily talented and are intimately familiar with the designs. There would be no need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak and their ability to create Guild Special Run limited edition guitars is well known and fits in with your business model. Everything Cordoba needs to make American Guilds is already in place and there would be no need to reverse engineer classic Guild models when the craftsmen in New Hartford have already perfected them for you.
Why have yet another lull in production when Guild seems to finally be getting the recognition that the brand deserves?
Thanks,
Steve Phillips

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Cool Steve. Love to hear a response....