Buying old, vintage Guilds

AcornHouse

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I've yet to buy an older Guild that needed a reset. Part of that is careful choice. Be diligent and walk away from any you don't want to deal with. I've had to do other work on them, but with any vintage guitar, that's expected. Factor that into your pricing range. I still prefer the older guitars to new ones. Call it history, mojo, aged, they just fit better for me. Everyone has their preferences.
Don't let others' presumptions keep you away from a great guitar!
 

Bonneville88

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IME... unless the seller has a string action gauge and is willing to show the action in a
suitably detailed photo - or a photo of a straight edge extending to the bridge -
or unless you can examine the guitar in person - it's a roll of the dice.
 
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mario1956

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Fixit has reset the neck on my 64 F212 (which has a smaller heel) and a 68 D40 with no issues. It takes more time and patience but it can be done. It's just that so many people have heard how "difficult" it is to do it the price goes up just to scare you away because they can't handle it.
$1200 is absolutely ridiculous.
 

Bonneville88

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It's just that so many people have heard how "difficult" it is to do it the price goes up just to scare you away because they can't handle it.
$1200 is absolutely ridiculous.

I've begun to think that's what's happening.
My experience has pretty much been the same as Richard's...
If I find a vintage Guild I want... in the general condition I expect... and it's the right price... I'll grab it!
 
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Br1ck

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I bought a D 35 from Gryphon really cheap because they did not want to put the work into it. For $200 I said what the heck. After sitting around in my closet for a decade, I had CK Perkins in San Jose, Ca. work on it. I paid them $1100 for a neck reset, fingerboard planeing, fret job, nut, bridge, saddle, and refinish of the neck which had been sanded to bare wood. Actually, $100 of that was for a NOS Brazilian bridge I got from Hans Moust.

CK Perkins was so backed up it took a year. They were a Guild repair center from Hoboken through New Hartford, so to them it was no big deal. When evaluating cost, you have to consider the high overhead in the SF Bay area, where a modest 3 bedroom house is $1 million anywhere you would want to live and probably a lot more, so commercial space is also at a premium. The actual work is the same, circumstance dictates price, and in Gryphon's case, reputation.

Bottom line is I don't think I'd find a guitar I'd like better for the money. I have a guitar that I don't worry about dinging up too much, and a 1970 Westerly Guild reclaimed from the darkness. Money well spent.

I'm sure later Guilds hold up better, but they just don't sound as good to me. The 78 D 40 I played in a shop was pretty good if you don't play an earlier guitar every day.
 

fronobulax

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can't believe how many D25s & 35s are out there - what I can't fathom is the ridiculous asking prices
for some of them as of late, especially the 25s - how the sellers are figuring their pricing info, gotta wonder.

Ohh. Ohh. Teacher! Call on me!!! I know the answer.

So I was younger and foolish and bought Mrs. Fro. a D-25. Foolish means I did not get LTG's input first, I didn't realize how important cosmetics were to her and I had no idea that guitar body size was a variable and some sizes worked better for some people than others. Oh yes, I overpaid by at least $100. Mrs. Fro. detested the case so we started using the case of previous instrument. Eventually someone on LTG offered a barely used case for a D25 and we buy it. At some point we notice minor cracks by the end peg and decided they needed fixing. (Might have been our fault for using a case that was marginally too small, or could have been a good bump or both). The under saddle transducer, which had been working "good enough", was broken. So repair and replace.

So if we put her D25 on the market for what we have in it we'd be asking at least $1500. And it would be worth every penny because of the new case, loving repairs and new pickup, right?

And my sense of the market is that half of that is closer and we might have to wait to sell.

That said, it's not on the market because sometimes she needs a cannon and sometimes she needs a pickup and the D25 is the go to instrument for both those cases.

On the foolish part, it turns out she likes Guilds and owning Guilds. She's up to five :)
 

jmascis

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can't believe how many D25s & 35s are out there - what I can't fathom is the ridiculous asking prices

Does this mean ridiculously high or low?
What's fair value for them in good condition?
 

fronobulax

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Does this mean ridiculously high or low?
What's fair value for them in good condition?

I'd say a D25 at $400 or less is either a steal or Run Away As fast as you can. $700 or over and you are dealing with well above average condition or a dealer or an instrument that will not be selling quickly. If my opinion is anywhere close to the market's consensus then the comment was about high asking prices.
 

Bonneville88

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I'd say a D25 at $400 or less is either a steal or Run Away As fast as you can. $700 or over and you are dealing with well above average condition or a dealer or an instrument that will not be selling quickly. If my opinion is anywhere close to the market's consensus then the comment was about high asking prices.

It was, and that's pretty much how I see it too... so the ones I see for $800 to $1400 (or more), perhaps the seller
doesn't really want to sell :confused-new: I recently tried to sell a Westerly D25 in good condition, couldn't get
$575 for it, decided to just keep it and play it for the time being.

Edit - just did a quick calculation of current D25 asking prices on Reverb... I counted 23 D25s for sale...
average asking price $900!
 
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chazmo

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There you go... Those are folks who might take a high offer, but essentially they're "selling without wanting to sell." "But, honey, I'm trying to get rid of some of these guitars... "
 
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My 64 D40 and I love it so much that five or ten years I really don't care what a reset cost. I could not get a better guitar to replace her at any price.
 

richardp69

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Amen Rick. I feel the same way about my '71 D 40 and in fact did invest in a neck reset, a top refin, a few crack repairs and a partial fret job. I'll never get my money out of it and I truly don't give a damn. If you're lucky enough to find "the one" then it's hard not to spend/invest what is needed to make it the best it can be.
 

jmascis

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Amen Rick. I feel the same way about my '71 D 40 and in fact did invest in a neck reset, a top refin, a few crack repairs and a partial fret job. I'll never get my money out of it and I truly don't give a damn. If you're lucky enough to find "the one" then it's hard not to spend/invest what is needed to make it the best it can be.

Are you willing to share how much you paid for that work? You can PM me if you want to keep it private. Did the reset come out proper/the guitar sounds and plays the same or better?
 

Br1ck

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Market places are very strange sometimes. I used to have a '72 Strat. It was a total boat anchor, good only for funk rhythm. Traded it for a Warmouth parts J bass I played for the next 20 years. Know what seventies Fender guitars are going for? Horidly painted with thick poly, probably $2000+.

So like it or not, spend $900 on the right D 25 and be happy for the next however many years. What else is better?
 

mavuser

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someone paid $1200 for a 1972 mahogany top flat/solid back cherry red D-25 on ebay not too long ago.

and someone paid $350 for one (a flat back 1972 D-25)
with a hole in the side the size of of a soft ball, and other assorted, significant, damage.

most are in between those 2, cosmetically. prices are very much dependent on condition! lots of them are in rough shape. but a creammy one can seem priceless.
 

Br1ck

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I'm just curious. Has anyone had a neck reset without fretwork, saddle, etc. replaced too?
 

Westerly Wood

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yes. back in 2015 on the Br. they did an ok job, but i think it was a rush job. still, the D25 is working well. to be fair, i only gave them a week :)
 

tommym

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I'm new to guild so I apologize in advance if I'm ignorant.

But...I've seen some okay deals lately on CL, but won't most of these need neck resets?

The owner of the most recent inquiry won't even give me the action at the 12th fret. Lol. I wonder what he is hiding.

My luthier, Jim Witt in San Luis, who is consider a great luthier, said he won't even do neck resets on Guilds because of the complexity. It's like a $1,200 job in California that almost nobody is willing to take on. To me it makes the vintage Guilds worthless. Has Guild solved this at all with their new builds and made neck resets easier? I just purchased an M-20 which I noticed uses a Mortise and Tenon joint instead of a Dovetail. Hopefully that makes a neck reset easier/possible.

Any thoughts on Guild and their neck reset problem? It seems a real issue, at least around here, as the two best luthiers both told me no way they're doing a rest on a Guild, and since it's such a huge job I can expect to pay over 1k. Jim Witt added he loves Guilds and owns one but won't do a reset on them.

Most of this has probably been mentioned in this thread.....

With the vintage Guilds, it was more the that fact that Guild finished the guitar / neck joint after it was assembled; that alone turned off a lot of luthiers to doing neck resets on these guitars. Some luthiers are just not proficient in lacquer repair / touch-up which is usually part of the deal with Guild neck resets. Can't really blame them, as some customer are extremely critical and may have unrealistic expectations in regards to the finished product. If a luthier decides to blend in a slightly darker color around the neck joint to dress up the neck reset, and you were not expecting to see that....yeah....you might blow your top and demand a refund. But that's not an unheard of solution to the neck reset issue on Guilds. It just another item that needs to be ironed out ahead of time with the luthier when it comes to Guilds.

Though the cost of a neck reset is typically higher that say a Martin, it's not something that typically needs to be done more than once, depending on how old you are....:blue:

To put things in to perspective, a friend of mine is on his second neck and third ebony fretboard on his busted-up Martin D-18 mahogany / sitka dread. It's his baby and he is not concerned about cost vs value. Many Guild owners feel the same about their guitars.

Tommy
 

tommym

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Exactly. I purchased a new Guild because I didn't want to deal with resets on some of the CL listings I saw (some good deals). It's just not worth the headache to me. Unfortunately I like the sound and feel of Guilds. Bought and HD-28 and had to return it. It's just not the sound I like. Martin offers a 20 year warranty of neck resets, though. Guild, zero. I wrote to ask...

Might want to revisit that so called Martin warranty as Martin has essentially said that unless there is a failure in materials, or issues at the neck joint, etc. a neck reset is not covered under warranty; it never was. Martin seems to be taking a much tougher stance on the "courtesy" neck resets they have been performing over the years.

Cordoba told me that neck resets (on my New Hartford Guilds) would be addressed on a case by case basis. Essentially, like Martin, it would have to be attributed to a failure in materials, or issues at the neck joint, etc..

Tommy
 

adorshki

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Not sure living in California should be a factor but who knows?? Maybe it is.
Yes, things are absolutely more expensive here.
Just about everything except the cost of heating your house in the winter is more expensive here.
And the luthiers gotta live here and rent space just like anybody else. (no snark intended at you, Richard)
@ the OP:
"J" This subject comes up periodically and yes there are some legitimate reasons Guilds are harder to re-set than others, in fact Gilded brought up a couple I hadn't heard before., like finding the right place to inject the steam.
I have heard of drilling 3 steam holes.
One of the quirkiest problems I ever heard about was from luthier Flip Scipio who worked at Guild in the mid '80's and reported that the glue pot was never emptied and cleaned, it was just re-filled all the time and was even contaminated with metal shavings. :eek:
Imagine trying to slide a neck out of its socket that was fighting that kind of friction, besides the massive amount of glue due to Guild's greater surface area (compared to most) in the dovetail, and different rates of expansion if a maple neck was in a 'hog neckblock (or vice-versa), so that the woods were always too tightly squeezed in any case.
But I think a lot of that rep was earned when the guitars that were from the most problematic build eras were starting to need resets, and luthiers gradually started shying away from 'em after a couple of bad experiences.
But there are a ton of successful re-set stories around here just like Richard mentions.
There're also a couple of other details that may or may not be priced into a $1200.00 neck reset, like a fretboard planing and refret, which Frank Ford (that guy at Gryphon and author of Frets.com ) recommends being done with any re-set, just to insure good geometry is completely restored once the neck's back on.
So Gryphon delivers a reset that needs nothing more than a set-up when finished, (and might even throw that into the price too, I don't know).
Another Guild "quirk"is that the neck joint is finished over and requires careful scoring before separation and then touch-up afterward if cosmetic restoration is part of the expected level of service.
Ahhh... I see once again I forgot to read all the post before composing this and others brought up most of these same issues.
So it goes.
 
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