NGD: Starfire III-90

matsickma

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2005
Messages
4,280
Reaction score
1,028
Location
Coopersburg, PA
The Guild M65 Freshman is similar to an old Guild Aristocrat with f-holes. Most, other than specials, had a single pickup. They came in blond and sunburst maple tops and mahogany backs and in red all mahogany bodies. Pickup were single coils varied from P90 looking Franz, Guild chrome soapbar or Guild white "Mickey Mouse" pickups.
It is possible the M65 Freshman model is what you remember.
M
 

Bernie

Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
757
Reaction score
296
Location
Occitania
No, no, that's closer but still not the one : not having the Florentine cut-away (sharp angle) is the most obvious difference...These guys are mixing up chambered bodies and hollow-bodies, that's all : I know that the guitar I remember must be a Starfire II ST, or maybe III if this one doesn't always have a Bigsby, which I reckon it does (?). I don't really like the way the M-65 looks, unlike the Starfire, and unfortunately none of these guitars have solid woods construction it seems...The Starfire can rock better too I think...
 

GAD

Reverential Morlock
Über-Morlock
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
22,582
Reaction score
17,799
Location
NJ (The nice part)
Guild Total
112
No, no, that's closer but still not the one : not having the Florentine cut-away (sharp angle) is the most obvious difference...These guys are mixing up chambered bodies and hollow-bodies, that's all : I know that the guitar I remember must be a Starfire II ST, or maybe III if this one doesn't always have a Bigsby, which I reckon it does (?). I don't really like the way the M-65 looks, unlike the Starfire, and unfortunately none of these guitars have solid woods construction it seems...The Starfire can rock better too I think...

The Starfire II with a Stoptail (hence the ST) is a Newark Street thing - they didn't exist back in the Hoboken or Westerly days. A Hoboken or Westerly Starfire II would have a harp tailpiece like this:


guild-starfire-II-cherry-1964-cons-full-front.jpg-nggid0522657-ngg0dyn-845x0x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg
 

GAD

Reverential Morlock
Über-Morlock
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
22,582
Reaction score
17,799
Location
NJ (The nice part)
Guild Total
112
If you want the kind of Les Paul shape with F-holes and a stop tale, feast your eyes on the Nightingale (an X3000 in this case):

5D3_7283_1600.jpg
 

parker_knoll

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2006
Messages
1,453
Reaction score
410
Location
London
These guys are mixing up chambered bodies and hollow-bodies, that's all

No they're not. Aristocrats are not chambered, they are fully hollow. I've been a member of this group for twelve years and there's a huge amount of knowledge here. Perhaps you should respect it.
 

Bernie

Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
757
Reaction score
296
Location
Occitania
<
The Starfire II with a Stoptail (hence the ST) is a Newark Street thing - they didn't exist back in the Hoboken or Westerly days. A Hoboken or Westerly Starfire II would have a harp tailpiece like this:


guild-starfire-II-cherry-1964-cons-full-front.jpg-nggid0522657-ngg0dyn-845x0x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg
I honesty don't remember if the guitar I was telling of did have the Harp tail-piece or not : it was somewhere in the late 70s to early 80s when I briefly had it in hand...One thing I do remember though is that it didn't have gloss finish I think...But from the way it looked, it was definitely a StarFire, probably II, without the "ST" mention then : thanks GAD for giving this important and relevant detail...
I'll have a look at the X-3000 (though it's not the guitar I was telling of...). Maybe this one could be all solid woods made ?
For the 'connoisseurs (?), if you look at the body's specs for M-75s as they are listed up there on the board below, it does say 'chambered' on the body construction line : www.guildguitars.com/g/m75-aristocrat/
 

mavuser

Enlightened Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
8,128
Reaction score
2,636
Location
New York
sorry Bernie, I did not realize you are one of these guys that wants an electric guitar to play it unplugged. have a blast with that. also, u should keep getting your info from the official Guild website, as it absolutely correct one hundred percent of the time.
 

Default

Super Moderator
Platinum Supporting
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
13,595
Reaction score
3,008
Location
Philly, or thereabouts
Guild Total
11
I was trying to locate the pics I took of my old M-75 that I traded to mavuser. I actually regretted that trade, :-0.
It was a hollowbody without a doubt, as I had to touch up the solder joints on the pups. It was a fairly thin plywood top and wasn't loud, acoustically, but usable for late nights.
 

Bernie

Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
757
Reaction score
296
Location
Occitania
sorry Bernie, I did not realize you are one of these guys that wants an electric guitar to play it unplugged. have a blast with that.(...)
I don't get any opportunity to play electric at the moment. I own a good U.S. made Telecaster and a Stratocaster (made in Japan), so I don't need any solid bodies right now. Hollow bodies do have a thing of their own, and it's always nice to be able to play an electric acoustically, for these late nights as Default pointed out, or when warming out before going on stage, or to have it in an hotel room, in your car or in one's rucksack when travelling for instance, while not having to carry an amplifier...Don't see anything funny in it.

Hollow-body usually designates a type of guitar which is acoustic or semi-acoustic, and does have a sound-hole or sound-holes, usually "Fs" in most of them : it's kind of agreed to use these words for it...
Chambered is different in that the guitars do not have any sound-holes, and are not meant to be used acoustically...The aim is to reduce weight. Many Les Paul owners agree that their guitars are heavy, and some complain about it...I believe that's then why this technique has been used...Taking away big chunks of wood in between some kind of rays all around, or using same rays or some kind of "braces" to hold tops an bottoms together, whatever technique may be used, does end up in having holes in between...So if you want to call it 'hollow-bodies' you won't be understood properly though not really wrong...

That these guitars would have a bit more sound than an ordinary solid body does make sense, and would have been my bet, but I didn't try the Chambered Les Paul I saw about 10 years ago (at a Gibson Road Show), where they demoed one of them (among many other Gibson models). But I don't think they can match a genuine (thin) 'hollow-body'...

But maybe you just like playing on words (or on people nerves).
 
Last edited:

GAD

Reverential Morlock
Über-Morlock
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
22,582
Reaction score
17,799
Location
NJ (The nice part)
Guild Total
112
"Chambered" and "hollow" are marketing terms. Getting flustered about their use is counterproductive.

A Bluesbird might be called chambered because there are chambers (plural) within the body. An Aristocrat might be called hollow because there is one "chamber"

A Gretsch Country Gentleman is a hollow guitar with no F-holes (they're painted on). "Hollow" has nothing to do with F-holes and I've never seen it called "chambered".
 

DThomasC

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
1,283
Reaction score
187
Location
Finger Lakes, New York, USA
Bernie, knowing the history of Guild literature - which includes the current guildguitars.com webpage - I find it comical that you would believe them over us.

The M-75 Aristocrat is built just like a small archtop guitar, except that the back is a flat (solid) piece instead of being arched. The top is laminated spruce and the sides are bent (laminated) mahogany.

Now please stop trying to educate us on guitar construction, especially when it comes to Guilds. It's evident from your posts that we already know better than you what we're talking about.

The Acoustic Guitar Forum has a subforum on archtops. Maybe they can help you find one that's all solid wood as you require. We don't have any.
 

adorshki

Reverential Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2009
Messages
34,176
Reaction score
6,790
Location
Sillycon Valley CA
Still, even if you're right, how do you guys know what I want better than I do...I told you of a 40 years memory of a guitar, didn't I ? And it doesn't look at all like this one, which is what I get googling Guild M-75 Aristocrat.
If this guitar is "hollow-body" as you say, and doesn't have any sound hole, where do you get its sound from ? I'm talking about guitars that have a bit of sound at least when played unplugged : aren't you talking about guitars that are empty inside in order to be lighter ?
NO.
Chambered construction allows use of a discrete top for resonance while suppressing feedback by virtue of the one-piece body.
In fact originally Les Paul himself advocated a 'hog top over maple body but it would have been just too heavy.
Heaviness was part of the price of entry, lamented by many players over the years and(to the point the Les Paul was even abandoned for a while in favor of the all solid SG)and driving Gibson to experiment with methods of lightening up the Les Paul by changing the chambering in more recent years.


There are hundreds of Les Paul-like guitars - even thousands - whereas I can't think of any other slim hollow-bodies with only one cut-away
Gibson ES-225t '55-'59.
And miscellaneous others after that, granted, not always "thin".

I honesty don't remember if the guitar I was telling of did have the Harp tail-piece or not : it was somewhere in the late 70s to early 80s when I briefly had it in hand...One thing I do remember though is that it didn't have gloss finish I think...But from the way it looked, it was definitely a StarFire, probably II, without the "ST" mention then : thanks GAD for giving this important and relevant detail...
I'll have a look at the X-3000 (though it's not the guitar I was telling of...). Maybe this one could be all solid woods made ?
The X-3000 is a solid routed body like a Les Paul but I don't recall if the top is solid or not.
In fact laminated tops help suppress feedback too.
The Starfire is actually more similar to Gibson's "ES" series; surprised nobody mentioned that.
There were 2 build types underneath the single or double cutaway:
A fully hollow version and one with a neck extension to help suppress feedback, thus the 4 basic types I-IV.
And As far as I know all Guilds got gloss NCL finish in the '70's so suspect the guitar you remember had been scuffed if it wasn't a gloss finish.

For the 'connoisseurs (?), if you look at the body's specs for M-75s as they are listed up there on the board below, it does say 'chambered' on the body construction line : www.guildguitars.com/g/m75-aristocrat/
Right. Chambered typically implies a solid chunk of wood, routed out.
"Hollow" and "Semi-Hollow" mean traditional separate back/sides/top construction with a through-body neck design such as an ES-335 being "semi-hollow".
Again, in the pursuit of feedback suppression.
 
Last edited:

walrus

Reverential Member
Gold Supporting
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
23,956
Reaction score
8,019
Location
Massachusetts
Bernie, particularly after several surgeries, I have actually looked to chambered and hollow body guitars for the lightness. I've had a few Bluesbirds, a Gibson ES-135, several archtops, and currently a PRS Hollowbody Spruce. And yes, I played them unplugged all the time - still play the PRS unplugged a lot. They all also sounded great plugged in, too!

walrus
 
Top