Guild S200 No Bird?

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Hey all, huge guild fan hoping to get some info on this S200. It seems to be a real one and the serial number indicates its from '64 but it essentially has an S100 Polara neck, no block inlays and the chesterfield logo instead of the bird.
The only other one I found like this is this one on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYsiyR5jMoI) but this one has the pickup layout of an S100 on the S 200 gumby body. Were these just slight variations or maybe a parts guitar of some kind?
Any info would be appreciated, thanks!

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AcornHouse

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If you look closely at the pick guard, you can see the pickups surrounds are separate from the rest of the pick guard. And the slider switch is a separate piece of pickguard material. That should be a one piece pickguard including the pickup surrounds; and the slider switch should be thin metal.

Someone took a Polara and has tried to fake a Thunderbird from it. My take.
 

airplane

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this is an interesting one!
has the early fretboard and headstock and four matching knobs but is cherry red and has the three slide switch panel like the younger ones. the pickup rings cover some shady routing work in the pickguard to make the pickups fit i guess.
 

matsickma

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The Thunderbird in the YouTube video sure looks origional and ultra cool! I love the sound of the chrome soapbar single coil pickups. It has standard S100 Polara electronics on a Thunderbird body with Polara neck.

It looks like the guitar you are looking at started out like the one in the video. Someone, maybe Guild, removed the pickup 3 position switch and replaced it with a pickguard material bezel for the slide switch and installed the triple slide switch mounting plate. The also swapped out the Guild chrome soapbar pickups witn mini Firebird type humbuckers.
I like it!

If you look at old Guild product brocures their is one that introduces the S200 Thunderbird, S100 Polara and S50 Jetstar. The pictures of the Polara abd Jetstar look like real products but the early incarnation of the Thunderbird had a S100 Polara body with upscaled features like a neck with Block fret markers. I'm not home at this time so I can't look it up but it may also DeArmond pickups installed. The Thunderbird picture looks more like an illustration than a photo.

I bring this up because Guild may have been floating a few different concepts around in the early days. Is it possible the Gumby Thunderbird shape was considered to be the platform shape for the first solidbodies only to finally have both Thunderbird and Polara body shapes emerge?

Maybe Hans can lend some light on this?

M
 

adorshki

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If you look at old Guild product brocures there is one that introduces the S200 Thunderbird, S100 Polara and S50 Jetstar. The pictures of the Polara and Jetstar look like real products but the early incarnation of the Thunderbird had an S100 Polara body with upscaled features like a neck with Block fret markers. I'm not home at this time so I can't look it up but it may also DeArmond pickups installed. The Thunderbird picture looks more like an illustration than a photo.
Did you post a scan of that before?
I think I've seen it.
I bring this up because Guild may have been floating a few different concepts around in the early days. Is it possible the Gumby Thunderbird shape was considered to be the platform shape for the first solidbodies only to finally have both Thunderbird and Polara body shapes emerge?
Knowing Guild, "Sure why not?".
And now I wonder if maybe Hans already mentioned it in the Book, and that's why it rings a bell??
 

mavuser

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very, very, cool. but without the bird it is not a thunder bird

early incarnation of an S-100 Polara or S-100 Polara deluxe, is my guess. too bad the pickups were changed.
 

adorshki

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i believe the early ones didn’t have the bird. if you’re referring to the headstock..
https://shop.guitarpoint.de/de/prod...are-?action=change_lang&new_lang=de&info=3711

I'm inclined to believe that particular guitar was reconstructed with S-100 parts like the pickguard (modified)*** and neck. I notice it also lacks the switch assembly.
I'm beginning to suspect the guitar in the OP also had its neck replaced.
I don't remember if the s/n is also inscribed in the body to verify "matching number" necks at that time, but I bet Grot knows.
From here:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?176337-How-rare-are-the-gumby-headstock-Polaras ,
another photo from Grot who's probably the best expert in this thread so far:
Grot215_zpsa0470e74.jpg


I wanted to agree with Mavuser that if it doesn't have a Thunderbird it's not a Thunderbird, but, Guild is well known to us for production one-offs and oddities and even special orders by now.

***thinking about it, I guess it'd be fairly easy to cut a new pickguard without having to resort to modifying one.

EDIT:
Virtually every vintage Thunderbird I find on a Google Image source shows the switch assembly and "t-bird" headstock.
Here's a contemporary ad as well:
GuildGuitarAd.jpg


But this is really interesting:
ssnu7vpyseyjovx7lpr0.jpg


It just popped up on a Reverb model recap:
https://reverb.com/price-guide/guide/1613-guild-thunderbird-s-200-1960s-red
Looks like that was introduced at the end of original production:
https://reverb.com/item/9155134-ca-1968-guild-thunderbird
Still has block markers, though.
 
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DThomasC

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To me, everything looks T-Bird except for the inlays in the headstock and fingerboard.

The pickup rings are just an additional layer of pickguard material laid over the original (T-Bird) pickguard to fit the Gibson Firebird pickups (or something that looks like Firebird pickups.) Likewise the switch plate and knobs are just things that happen to a guitar over the course of half a century.

Maybe it's an S100 or S50 neck on an S200 body. Maybe it came from the factory that way or maybe the same craftsman that fabricated the pickup rings and switch plate installed it. I couldn't know, but I do believe that guitar (body) has been an S200 from the start.

EDIT: Hans might be able to say what model the serial number on the back of the headstock belongs to. Or maybe not; I don't know how detailed his records are.
 
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mavuser

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The S-100 Polara had a different body shape.

S-100.jpg

yes, i know it did. my guess is at first they were going to make it the same body as the T-bird. then they decided to make it match the Jetstar instead. I feel like Hans has possibly commented on this before, unless it was a dream
 

mavuser

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on page 154 of Hans’ book you will see the S-200, S-100, and S-50 all in an early advertisment have the polara/Jetstar body. so at some point early on they changed the S-200 to a T-bird body. my guess is they also changed the S-100 at that time to the T-bird body, then, shortly after, they changed S-100 back to jetstar body.

One thing is for sure, without the bird it is not a Thunderbird. it is missing many other features as well, as others have pointed out. But no bird equals no Thunderbird
 

The Guilds of Grot

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One thing is for sure, without the bird it is not a Thunderbird. it is missing many other features as well, as others have pointed out. But no bird equals no Thunderbird

So by that logic, is an X-79 not an X-79 without the matching headstock?

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