What about this 1966 Guild D-50(BRW claimed) on Reverb?

mike1100 said:

I have wondered if the Brazilian rosewood mystique is more due to market rarity versus tonal differences. That said, whatever makes folks happy. I'm not immune to marketing and "perceived rarity". I want to know if there are tonal differences between "typical" and "sinker" mahogany, or is it hype.

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Brazilian was regarded as the best available tonewood long before it was scarce, the scarcity only enhanced the perceived value of existing items and the wood itself, whether a particular specimen justified it or not.
As far as I've seen "Sinker" wood is prized primarily for aesthetic value.
Apparently some types might also have compromised strength:
https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/magazine/fdmc-magazine/sinker-cypress-vs-regular-cypress

dapmdave said:

Regarding neck resets, I agree with you. But if the owner/seller took the guitar to a luthier and asked that it be made as good as possible without having the neck reset, then one could say that it had been professionally set up, but the action was (still) high. It happens. Of course, we don't know the back-story, but I think the answer to "Why?" is that they want maximum profit from it.

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There's also at least several of us here who'd rather buy it that way and send it to guys like you and Fixit, than worry about whether we're paying for work that's not up to our personal quality standards.

Al, thanks for the insight and the link. That clears some things up and sadly also confirms my inner 13 year old will most likely never grow up.

mike1100 said:

Al, thanks for the insight and the link. That clears some things up and sadly also confirms my inner 13 year old will most likely never grow up.

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It IS a scientifically proven fact that plants exposed to AC/DC music exhibit radically compromised growth patterns:

adorshki said:

There's also at least several of us here who'd rather buy it that way and send it to guys like you and Fixit, than worry about whether we're paying for work that's not up to our personal quality standards.

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Yes, there's that, too.

All the guy needs is one person with too much money.

Br1ck said:

All the guy needs is one person with too much money.

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Well, I'm out.

walrus

It is my understanding that the Brazilian rosewood “thing” all boils down to the density of the wood. I have a good friend that is a luthier and according to him the more dense the wood the more the guitar will project. Brazilian is more dense than East Indian. Cocobolo(?) is close to, if not more dense, than Brazilian. I have several Brazilian guitars and one soon to be two Cocobolo guitars, as well as several,E.I. guitars. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that they both tend to project a little more than the E.I. guitars. I think that there is a certain mystique about Brazilian due to the embargo, but I also think that they do tend to project a little more.

In general agreement with Butch, except that I think the low end on EIR guitars is usually more robust than on Brazilian.

About Brazilian being the "best" acoustically/tonally: One does have to account for the one-time near-universal preference of bluegrass players for the mahogany D-18 over the rosewood D-28. Or the near-universal use of maple for carved-back archtops. (Though there's a cult for the old walnut Epiphones.) Or the testimony of any number of luthiers I've talked to who see design and construction as the most significant element in producing a good-sounding instrument.

An important element in the popularity of Brazilian in the guitar world has been its visual beauty. There are certainly tonal qualities, but I suspect that's not what led Lyon & Healy to use Brazilian even on its non-top-of-the-line Washburns. The wood was more expensive than the birch they used for their bargain instruments, but it was cheap and plentiful enough to use on, say, the circa-1900 Model 101 I own.

Were all Rosewood Guilds in the 60's Brazilian?
I thought that I once read that Guild used a lot of IR in the 60's.

I for one, don't have a good enough ear to tell the true differences tonally between EIR and BR. I own some of both and I will say the sound is different between the two, I just can't tell exactly why.

For me, the desirability of BR is two-fold:
1.) I love the gorgeous grain on many (but not all) BR guitars. Some of it is truly stunning.

2.) As I've gotten older and my guitar journey is slowing down significantly, I find myself more drawn to the older (usually) and the rarer pieces one doesn't come across often.

Taylor Martin Guild said:

Were all Rosewood Guilds in the 60's Brazilian?
I thought that I once read that Guild used a lot of IR in the 60's.

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Probably 90% plus as far as I can recall seeing here.
There wasn't any compelling reason not to use it until around '69 (IIRC)*** when the Brazil's export embargo finally started choking off supply, but Guild had stocks and were still offering guitars with mixed EIR/Braz backs and sides in '71 and up through at least '73 according to confirmed owner reports here.
So the EIR was blended I as the Braz was depleted.
After that they still had stocks of it suitable for fretboards and bridges well into the '80's.
It was so predominant that I was surprised when Hans ID'd the wood on an early '60's Mark series classical as EIR in the last ear or so, it stuck with me because it was a surprise.
Remember also they didn't offer all that many models that used for bodies in any case:
D50/D55/F50R/F512/F30r/F312

** I can recall at least one if not 2 '69 Hoboken-built F512's that were confirmed as Braz, one is here:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/sh...-of-this-1970-s-Guild-F-50-Brazilian-rosewood

Butch said:

It is my understanding that the Brazilian rosewood “thing” all boils down to the density of the wood. I have a good friend that is a luthier and according to him the more dense the wood the more the guitar will project. Brazilian is more dense than East Indian.

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That corresponds to what I've read about pore count between the 2, EIR has about twice as many per volume, from here:
"Most commonly confused with East Indian rosewood, the two can usually be separated on the basis of pore density: Brazilian rosewood has roughly half as many pores per square surface area ."

Also Braz was noted for the ability to produce almost bell like timbres when used in xylophones and marimbas, for example, and that was seen as a highly desirable quality for an instrument in general.