Are Westerlys still from Westerly

Interesting thread, enjoying the read. Better minds than mine making excellent points and observations.

Only thing I can add is that I have a recently acquired D-120 and IMO it stacks up
well against similarly-priced Blue Ridge & Alvarez. Nut is a very comfortable 1 3/4",
better left hand ergos than any of my Westerly D25s.
Neck is great, action is great, build quality & finish seem excellent.

Sound is pleasing - not the character and tone, nor the volume of a vintage Westerly D25 but I don't expect it to be.

Why did I buy it? Great price, and curious about Guild MICs, and the best way to know more was to get one.
Will I keep it? Dunno... just enjoying it for now and thinking Guild has something to
offer that's worthy of consideration vs the competition.

mavuser said:

GAD was part of the Guild brand, just like Newark Street. im sure that was part of the package. you may be overthinking this one Al, who knows.

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I could be, it's one of my favorite hobbies.
:biggrin-new:
What got me started down that path was that "Arcos" was part of the Guild brand too, but was specifically left out of the deal, "IIRC".
Think Fender still handles warranty on those, for example.
In fact it'd be interesting to find out who handles warranty on GAD's, IF there's still a warranty.
TXbumper was pretty well-versed on that a while back, I think.
I'll admit to it not being important enough to me to do a search myself.
:friendly_wink:

fronobulax said:

Country of origin discussions on LTG tend to boil down to politically based opinions (support "my" economy) or product quality. Discussions about the latter inevitably generate a lot of smoke but no fire because some people think the quality is a function of the target price and other people think it is a function of the local work force and (factory) local environmental regulations.

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I think you're remembering the bad old days before we had the Grand Unification of Correct Thinking.

The new "Westerly" line is in keeping with the Chinese tradition of ripping off all things American. The line should be called, "Easterly".

westerlyborn said:

The new "Westerly" line is in keeping with the Chinese tradition of ripping off all things American. The line should be called, "Easterly".

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Joke noted. Comment about Chinese ripping off Americans noted as being a bit too political for LTG especially since Americans came up with the name and outsourced the work to Chinese factories.

dbirchett said:

I thought all of these MIC guitars were coming from mainland China but discovered that many are made in Taipei, Taiwan.

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fronobulax said:

News to me. Could you elaborate on your discovery? My understanding is that the only factory we have identified as making Guilds belongs to Grand Reward Education & Entertainment and is on mainland China. But neither GREE nor Guild will confirm that and it makes good business sense not to. If I don't advertise where my "commodity" guitars are produced then I can change factories as necessary to get the same or better quality at the same or lower price.

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It's an confusing topic I think based on a mixture of traditional Chinese naming and English naming.

There is a company called “Feng Chi Trading.Co. Ltd.”
Their address is “10FL. NO.90 HUAI NING ST TAIPEI TAIWAN ROC“

And Cordoba Music Group at 1401 STELLAR DRIVE, OXNARD CA 93033, USA imports "GUILD guitars and cases" into Long Beach harbor from that address in Taiwan as shipper.

Maybe that is where Don has his info from.


BUT: The vessels leave from Yantin/China harbor, not from a harbor in Taiwan!

Now “Feng Chi Trading.Co. Ltd” has only their Head office at 10F, No.90 Huai Ning St., Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.”, but no factory. So where is the factory?
That can be answered by looking uo which tradenames are registered for them. The trade name “FARIDA” is owned by Feng Chi Trading.Co. Ltd.!

That might ring a bell, right? Because if you look up FARIDA you end up at the fact that Feng Chi Trading.Co. Ltd.’s guitar factory is in China at “No.52 Ju Yuan Rd., Chiu Chang Town, Hui Yang City, Guang Dong, China”, which in return is the address of “Grand Reward Education & Entertainment (GREE)”. As we know, GREE is producing the FARIDA brand name guitars and OEM guitars for Guild and Vintage and others.

And Yantin harbour is the next international harbour from Hui Yang City, about 55 km by road. It's all close to Hong Kong to give an idea.

So unless Don knows of Guild guitars marked with Country of Origin "Taiwan" or knows of the factory in Taiwan, the guitars imported from “Feng Chi Trading.Co. Ltd.” in Taipei/Taiwan are still made in China at GREE.


There is one unsolved riddle which is why CMG changed the round labels and serial numbers on the 200 series arched back guitars and if that could potentially mean a second manufacturer in China for the 200 series.
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/sh...-manufacture&p=1789615&viewfull=1#post1789615
100 series serial numbers start with G1 and 200 series with G2, both have Made in China written on the neck heel label, but a very different soundhole label.
G1 and G2 could simply mean 100 series and 200 series but it does not explain the different soundhole label to me.
And it looks like CMG changed in 2017 again away from the G1 numbering system to simply G... An later they started using G3 !

Ralf