NGD - X-500

GGJaguar

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From an estate sale, I present one very clean 1976 X-500 BL (from the roughly 15 year period when it was just X-500 not X-500 Stuart). About the only thing I had to do was change the strings. It has the usual 1970s construction - laminated maple body with a 4-ply spruce-unknown-unknown-maple laminated top (0.20 inch top thickness), 7-ply "racing stripe" binding, 3-ply bound f-holes, HB-1 pickups, Guild labeled Schaller M6 tuners, engraved harp tail (made in West Germany) and lucite stairstep pickguard with Guild logo. The body has some really nice figuring ("ghost" flame) that is readily apparent to the naked eye, but it is very difficult to photograph using point-and-shoot digital. Still, you can get a sense of what it's like from the photo below.

I'm not a jazzer, but the chimey HB-1s lend themselves to rock and power pop really well. The guitar doesn't have a soundpost, but it is more feedback resistant than the '77 CE-100D I had (also with HB-1s). That guitar howled at the slightest provocation! This X-500 has the typical '70s skinny neck with a 1 5/8-inch nut width. I prefer a wider nut width (1 11/16 or 1 3/4), but the neck on this guitar not all that much different than many of the solid body guitars I play so the dimensions aren't much of an issue. Overall I'm really pleased with this guitar.

76%20X-500f.jpg
76%20X-500r.jpg
 

shihan

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Man, that’s a beauty! Congratulations on getting that baby!
 

GGJaguar

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Nice top on that one, too. Sweeeeet.

It's funny you mention that. This guitar and my X-500T use really nice quarter-sawn spruce with lots of silking. I'm impressed that Guild did that since the tops are laminated. You'd think they would save that grade of spruce for flattops or solid carved archtop models. Kudos to Guild.
 

jp

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That is such a classy looking guitar. Just beautiful all around!

Thanks for sharing.
 

adorshki

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It's funny you mention that. This guitar and my X-500T use really nice quarter-sawn spruce with lots of silking. I'm impressed that Guild did that since the tops are laminated. You'd think they would save that grade of spruce for flattops or solid carved archtop models. Kudos to Guild.

You can thank Willie for that:
http://www.westerlyguildguitars.com/articles/woodselection.pdf
We've discussed before that what Guild called AA might well qualify as AAA to other makers, but I haven't seen evidence yet that Guild actually used that terminology until the Fender era.
From what I've seen it was either good enough for Willie or it wasn't, but he did select out his best stuff.
So that top probably might be middle-of-the road by Willie's standards, he probably did have as stash of what he considered the creme de la creme for the AA's and D55's and F50's.
But it wouldn't surprise me if an X500 qualified for the top shelf wood, it is pretty near top of the line.
Usually what we've seen in lower grade tops is a lot more color variation (striping), but even those were quarter-sawn, silking's visible in just about every good photo of used pieces all over the net.
 
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bobouz

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Beautiful guitar -

Congrats & Enjoy!
 
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