Hi. I am trying to determine what year my Guild Starfire III was made? It is a U.S.A. Westerly R.I. model in a blonde/natural finish, with serial number AG001472.
Hi. I am trying to determine what year my Guild Starfire III was made? It is a U.S.A. Westerly R.I. model in a blonde/natural finish, with serial number AG001417.
(I corrected the serial number)****
Thanks
My guitar is a Guild Starfire III. It is a SINGLE cutaway (Florentine). This guitar is NOT a Starfire IV. A member of this forum tells me that my guitar's serial number belongs to a Starfire IV. This has a created a lot of confusion. Either the Westerly factory made a mistake, or some of the Guild reference material is incorrect.
Sorry Hans. The guitar is a Starfire III. Thin hollow body with the single Florentine cutaway. Natural/Blonde finish. Maybe somebody at the factory got the stickers mixed-up with a Starfire 4. I just don't know. It's a mystery to me too. I'm just reporting what it says on the sticker inside the f-hole.
My guitar is a Guild Starfire III. It is a SINGLE cutaway (Florentine). This guitar is NOT a Starfire IV.
Maybe somebody at the factory got the stickers mixed-up with a Starfire 4. I just don't know. It's a mystery to me too. I'm just reporting what it says on the sticker inside the f-hole.
OK, that's what I needed to know. No, I don't think that the stickers were mixed up. It's not important what's written on the label; what's important is what's stamped into the back of the headstock!
If the serial number on the back of the headstock is also # AG001417, then there are 2 possibilities for the date of manufacture:
Or the guitar is from 1998 or the guitar is from the year 2000. Show me a photo of the front of the instrument and I should be able to tell you what year it was completed.
..and with 2 bridge pickups?
Actually, wouldn't the pickups help to date the guitar? My '98 Guilds have DS1s in them and my 2000s have Fender pickups. Certainly it's a gamble using a replaceable part to date a guitar, but it could be a clue, no?
Hello Guild Guy,
What you should know about Guild serial numbers is that during that period Guild used a designated group of serial numbers for each individual model. Starfire 4 /IV serial numbers started with AG00xxxx, while the Starfire 3 /III serial numbers started with AG30xxxx.
Since the serial number of your Starfire III starts with AG00xxxx it means that a mistake was made somewhere during the stamping process.
With what I know about the procedure of stamping serial numbers there are 2 possibilities where it could have gone wrong:
1) The guy who stamped the numbers forgot to change the 3rd digit from a 0 to a 3, while going from a batch of Starfire 4s to a batch of Starfire 3s, in which case the serial number should have read AG301417. That serial would date the guitar to 1998.
or
2) While stamping a batch of Starfire 4s, the worker grabbed the next guitar from the rack, not noticing it was a Starfire 3, and erroneously stamped the instrument with the next Starfire 4 number in the line, which was AG001417. If that was the case the guitar was stamped during the year 2000.
Depending on whether the worker noticed his mistake or not, there might be other guitars with the same mistake, but until we come across some others we will not know. In the ‘Guild manufacturing world’ a mistake like that would not mean much. The instrument would be lacquered and by the time it would be completed, the worker in ‘final assembly’ would simply copy the number from the back of the headstock to the label and that would be it. In the ‘Guild fanatics world’ there will be a problem though, because the guitar cannot be dated to an exact year without looking at the guitar itself.
But lucky for us we now have a photo of your guitar …….
…… and from the specs of the guitar I can tell you that it’s a Starfire III from the year 2000.
Sincerely,
Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
Pulled out my capnjuan Starfire III. It's number is AG302017 and it is identical to the one above.
If you go to my earlier post, you will read that the guitar has already been dated by specs; the pickups are just one of them!
Sincerely,
Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl