Pete Townshend - What's this Guild guitar?

Brucebubs

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What is this ornate Guild guitar pictured here with Pete Townshend?
Is it a rare model?

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Stuball48

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Believe it is the "Merle Travis" model from around 1963-identified by Hans on page 100 of his hardback book.
Beautiful!
 

Brucebubs

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I did notice this 'Merle Travis' model - it has different fret markers compared to Pete's guitar.

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SFIV1967

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Bizarre guitar... feedback machine?
No. What I read is that the top is carved out of a one inch piece of wood, but the inside is uncarved. So that guitar is arched on top but it’s an inch thick under the bridge. The back was not solid (see Hans comment in next post) Merle Travis wanted it to sound like a solid-body but look otherwise.

Here's that info about the Merle Travis model:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/sh...Merle-Travis&p=1638298&viewfull=1#post1638298

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Some more pictures inside this PDF: https://www.google.de/url?sa=i&rct=...aw2GRmFsW2AaTlCkF0ndJELy&ust=1553354598241357


And the below is the one Rick Nielsen owns and which is now in Burpee Museum in Rockford Illinois (it was posted above with the different fretmarkers). Quite a story about that guitar!

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Hans had previously posted a picture of the "accident", which was repaired by the Guild repair shop in Nashville.

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Here's a picture from the Burpee Museum in Rockford Illinois:

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Hans knows about at least 5 such guitars (not 3 as many sources claim).

Ralf
 
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Guildedagain

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Awesome info/pics, thx for this post.

The guitar is outstanding, nothing else like it.

In case you're not familiar with Travis's custom electric guitar he made himself in 1947, it surprisingly looks like both a Les Paul (body) and Strat (neck) at a time when neither guitar had been born yet, quite.

https://thebluegrasssituation.com/read/merle-travis-the-urban-hillbilly-guitar-hero/

Travis, known the world over for Travis picking, "a footnote in Chet Atkin's history" you say?

Yeah, until The Beatles met up with Donovan at Rishikesh in '68 and John was probably like "Eh, Donovan, what is that you're pickin there?" and Donovan was like "It's Travis picking, I can show you, but it takes time" and he showed John, who he says took three days to get it, and wrote Dear Prudence, and "a handful of other songs". Paul couldn't stand still long enough to learn it by being shown, so he picked it up by hearing it walking in and out, and came up with Blackbird, and a handful of other songs.

They came up with so many songs "The White Album" couldn't take all of them and they spilled over into Abbey Road.

I just recently learned it, don't have the years of muscle memory set in yet, but everyday stronger.

Also to note, somehow "across the pond" it got confused with Clawhammer, so the nomenclature's all twisted up.

Clawhammer it is not.

Oddly enough, when I get going picking (as in wayyyy too fn fast) I mix clawhammer and good ol Travis picking.

Merle Travis, a guitar hero with few peers, in my eyes.

And that guitar...

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Yup, that's right, 1946. And remember, Gibson sued PRS over the single cut LP body style, the McCarty.
 
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Quantum Strummer

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Paul Bigsby was a creative & innovative dude for sure. There was something in the water in post-WWII SoCal even before the '60s. :) Fertilizer runoff maybe…

-Dave-
 

Guildedagain

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Definitely something in the water ;-)

Funny how Leo got the credit for the 6 inline look, but there it is. Simple, clean, wow.

The little flourishes like the cutaway fingerboard... This guitar rivals anything I've seen made by custom builders as featured on Reverb, in fact a lot of those guys could stand to take a look at the Travis guitar.
 
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Zelja

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The shape on the Bigsby guitar is super elegant. Confused what the selector switch & 3 knobs do for one pickup though.
 

walrus

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Yup, that's right, 1946. And remember, Gibson sued PRS over the single cut LP body style, the McCarty.

When Gibson sued PRS it was out of fear -they were floundering and PRS was growing. I guess they weren't afraid of Bigby in 1946. And of course, society was not so litigious then, either...

That Bigsby is one interesting looking guitar!

walrus
 

Guildedagain

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The three pos switch, a la Tele, probably a couple different tone caps, each one successively darker, simulating a neck p'up, and a third and even darker position.

The original Tele circuit, still the circuit in my '52 RI, is Bridge, Neck, and Neck with a pretty big cap to kill any highs. You can however, get a fourth sound out of it, neck and bridge together (in phase or out of phase, who knows but it sounds out) by finding the "between" positions (#2 #4) like on an old Strat before Fender put a five way switch in it.

A primer on the wonderful little things ;-)

https://www.fralinpickups.com/2017/08/08/tone-capacitors-work/
 

adorshki

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When Gibson sued PRS it was out of fear -they were floundering and PRS was growing. I guess they weren't afraid of Bigby in 1946. And of course, society was not so litigious then, either...
As GA mentioned there were no LP's in 46, so there WAS nothing to fear.
Pretty obvious both McCarty and Leo Fender copied Bigsby if you ask me.
I'd read Bigsby was the actual granddaddy of 'em all but never saw that before, now I get it.
If anything Bigsby would have been the "offended" party, but I have foggy recollection there were reasons litigation never occurred.
Maybe it was because Gibson bought the rights to the tailpiece and sweetened the deal to avoid a messy mess?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bigsby
Or maybe as an inventor and motorcycle engineer he just had stronger interests in that field?
 

Guildedagain

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Here's Merle again, with a Bigsby Dread, with that headstock, and quite the pickguard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VikAbi4hTs

I'd never even checked out Merle videos til today, but he kept it real simple with thumb and index finger, whereas everybody else says "anchor down, and a finger per string, 3-2-1/E-B-G.

Which is great and all, but I have such bad habits from the years of bad habits that I do it better with thumb plus two fingers rather than three. And I do see a lot of other players who don't use the third finger, but Merle, holy cr@p, thumb and index, that's it.

And, the thumb can't wander down, and neither can the trebles wander up.

What's going on is intensely rhythmic. Your thumb plays quarter notes, index and other fingers interlocking 8th notes.
 
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