New Hartford - no headstock serial numbers?

beecee

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Boy, those are some mondo tuners, eh? :) Kind of calls out the fact that the center strip in the neck lamination is not quite dead center. But, that's only if you're truly anal-retentive and notice **** like that. :) :)

Nobody around here fits THAT description!!!!!!
 

twocorgis

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Ditto, Sandy, except I think the custom guitars (kinda' like the Orpheum series) were great from all locations. It's really the main-line Guilds I was talking about as being just remarkably great from NH. But, hey, you and I were there, Sandy, and neither of us saw Guild from the inside before that... Sadly, many of our crew here didn't get to be part of the LMG events and really see things in action through the few years of New Hartford production. And, perhaps even more sadly, Guild was a closed book before that. Very few people ever got to experience Tacoma/Corona/Westerly and even Hoboken and the wonderful people of Guild through the years. I was lucky to spend a day with (Charlie) WorkedInWesterly at the last LMG event and I really, really enjoyed his comparison remarks to me. Boy we had a good time setting up that stage together...

Anyway, speaking of the Orpheum, I kind of think of those guitars as adjacent to Guild... Custom, if you will. I tend to agree that there's little likelihood we'll ever see them again. In that way, Guild was lucky to have Ren (and some other talented luthiers) toward the end of NH.

I'll agree that Orpheums are rather "un Guild-like" in their sound, and their profoundly light builds, but I still consider them to be Guilds, just the best acoustic guitars that ever wore the brand. I have played custom shop Guilds from other places, but none that came close to my two Orpheums, at least to my ears. It's a shame they'll most likely never be made again.

Don't get me wrong my Tacoma Guild's are leaps and bounds ahead of any Martin and Gibson acoustics I've played and I'm like a kid in a candy store every time I pick them up.. However if I could snap my fingers and turn them into NH built Guilds I would. My F512 has no business being that easy to play while sounding as good as it does. From what I understand, a lot of the improving the playability was Ren Ferguson's doing?

Not really, at least until the Orpheums were released. Ren wasn't there in 2009 when the factory opened, and that's when Darren Wallace and his crew went to work on tooling that would combine a perfect blend of machine and hand, to tighten up the tolerances and take some weight off the earlier designs. Things like the binding on the headstock of the full bling Guilds (like our F512s) is so much smoother and better looking from the New Hartford plant than from anywhere, and all it takes is a quick side by side comparison to bear that out. Darren also said a few times that he borrowed a lot of the production techniques from Bill Collings, and there's no way that could ever be a bad thing. When we toured the Collings factory an LTG get-together in Austin in 2014, you could see a lot of similarities in the manufacturing process.

I'm glad I own a bunch of NH made Guilds, and every one of them is wonderful. I fear that the brand will never be the same, and I hope I'm wrong about that.
 

F312

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I agree with the NH guitars as being great built and sound, just as good, are the Tacoma guitars, IMHO.

Ralph
 

Bill Ashton

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I lament the fact that I sold my NH F512, but simple fact was that I simply did not play her. And that fact was that there was just some little thing, I think string spacing at the bridge, that made the guitar difficult for me to play finger-style. Which was what my main thrust was at the time. So she sat. Immaculate build. Not custom, but ordered by Carl for me, and was first off that particular run. Boy, they got the neck profile right, almost 60's Fender C, very low profile and very suited to making a 12-string easy to play. My trouble was at the other end.

So, there is some gentleman in Maryland pickin' and grinnin' with my old F512, wondering how he fell into such a good deal off Reverb. Play on, you crazy diamond :laughing:

At this time, and I should almost seek shelter when I broadcast this, there are only two or three guitars that are in the "lust list," only one of which might be obtainable, one of the other two being in fact a NH build...one of the first F40 "specials." Really should try to make contact with its owner. When I get some more money...
 
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rwmct

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Sadly, many of our crew here didn't get to be part of the LMG events and really see things in action through the few years of New Hartford production.

I am one who did not, and I live about fifteen minutes from there. Had dropped interest in guitars for a decade or more, and had no idea Guild had relocated right down the road.
 
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