Is this rare ?

No clue, Coastie. However, it is always good to see you around here! Hope all is good on the other side of the Pacific! :biggrin-new:

All the best,
B.

coastie99 said:

http://www.gbase.com/gear/guild-custom-bass-guitar-natural

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Glad to hear from you.

Not only is it rare, there is only one and there is no evidence that it was built by Guild in a Guild factory.

It was discussed briefly a while back and as I recall the consensus is that the neck may have been made by Guild but nothing else seems to have been. In particular it would take a lot of work to reshape a known Guild body to that shape and even then the control cavity shape doesn't match anything.

I examined it. The neck looks and feels authentic. Otherwise, it does appear to be a Les Paul style body.

The seller is quite stubborn that is a Guild product. He bristled when I referred to it as a "frankenguild". I did not press him on it. Maybe he has more info to support that. I've never heard a bad thing said about him so I doubt he is deliberately trying to scam anyone. But that doesn't mean that whoever sold it to him was totally above-board. I don't know.

It could be someone in the shop built it as a project. I believe they did things like that.

chazmo said:

It could be someone in the shop built it as a project. I believe they did things like that.

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I seem to recall hans mentioning some allowances being made for that kind of thing, and it would be a very plausible explanation for the lack of s/n on the headstock, but I don't think any knowledgable appraiser would recognize it as a GENUINE factory initiated product without a s/n or some other kind of provenance explaining why there is no s/n.
In fact calling it a "Custom" verges on implying it could be a Custom Shop creation, and those DEFINITELY had some extra identification as to their source.
Even in the collector car market, "custom" denotes something that was NOT built in the factory.

It doesn't look exactly like a Les Paul body shape to me - body is a little elongated compared to the width & the cutaway doesn't look quite right. The cavity shape looks like a that of an LP though. All IMHO though.

Zelja said:

It doesn't look exactly like a Les Paul body shape to me - body is a little elongated compared to the width & the cutaway doesn't look quite right. The cavity shape looks like a that of an LP though. All IMHO though.

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's funny, that's why I thought it didn't look right for an M85 bass.
Maybe one of the countless copycat bodies out there?

It was already discussed quckly here: http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/sh...with-a-Guild-neck-headstock-or-was-it-factory and http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?180308-quot-custom-quot-Guild-bass and http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?180634-Guild-Custom-Bass

Isn't this like Japanese or Korean what's written in the pot chamber?
And look at the connection between neck heel and body...
It is a Frankenstein guitar...That body never ever was made in the US or even by any Guild employee in his spare time...
And if that was a neck with a serial number the back of the headstock was just sanded down so the serial number disappeared I guess.
My five cents...
Ralf