Guilds Question

Hey all,

New here and relatively new to guitars in general; especially vintage or classic guitars.

Can anyone point me in the direction of good threads or information to read on identifying or what to look for when buying older guilds.

These two play very well to my ears, and these prices seem reasonable based on what I am seeing.

The F-50 is extremely heavy and a beautiful instrument.

These are found in a local guitar store.

I am relatively close to Nashville where I would imagine I would find a good amount of older guilds in their shops, perhaps selling at more of a premium though.

I was looking at a Chinese made 12 string and would like to buy a USA made one but always thought those were way out my price range.

These two are right at the upper limits of what I would be able to spend but if I would have to save up some more in order to get a US made Guild I would imagine that would be worth it.

Let me know what I should look at.

Thank you.

Welcome.

The generic advice about vintage instrument purchases boils down to checking the neck angle in order to assess whether a neck reset is likely to be needed to make it playable. Understand that "playable" can mean something different to someone who just plays cowboy chords on the first five frets and someone who plays single string lines at he 12th fret or higher and demands excellent intonation and the low action they have on an electric. There are several ways to do this, which other folks will post, but the saddle and bridge are often the first hint that a careful assessment would be worthwhile.

Depending upon what you will accept for cosmetics, you can sometimes find US made vintage Guilds for $500 although $1,000 opens up lots more possibilities.

Welcome. Stick around - nice folks around here.

The neck angle check Frono speaks of can be found here:


Carter's Vintage Guitars sometimes has nice Guilds as does Gruhn's.

You can also keep an eye on the for sale/for trade forum:


And the Craigslist/Ebay forum here:

I think the first thing to check is the neck angle. If a guitar is going to need a neck reset in the near future, it will cost $500 or more to get done. Here's an article on how to check this angle:http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Musician/Guitar/Setup/NeckAngle/neckangle.html

Thanks Fronobulax & GJbalcyon.

I will try to bring someone more experienced then I am along when I plan on making a purchase.

Welcome to a knowledgeable and willing to help forum.
I see you are near Nashville - so am I. If I can help, I will be glad to try. Sent you a PM

Generally, if a guitar plays and sounds great, it doesn't have problems.

Problems like neck angle mean high action, and even with low saddle, still high action sometimes, and of course tone seriously suffers because of the low saddle.

Luckily with old Guilds, some sounded so damn good to start with that even later on life with a low saddle, still a pretty dang good sounding guitar.

USA flattop guitars fall into several categories;

Hoboken, the earliest/priciest, and probably the best. Braz Rosewood back/sides on upper end models.

Westerly, from about 1970, closed in 2000 when Fender bought Guild. Great guitars, reasonable prices. The earlier 70's are lighter by about a pound than late 70's but the quality never ever went down and that's the most important thing about Guild, there is no bad time period.

Then there's everything made afterwards, Corona, Oxnard, Tacoma, I can't keep track of it all, so these are not in proper order. Tacoma built guitar are gems by all accounts.

Serial number info is easy to find online, dating your Guild. These are good to keep in your computer for instant reference.

At some point in the fairly recent past, a seasoned vet by name of Ren Ferguson took over the Guild shop, really upped Guild's guitar game, made the Orpheums (do I have that right?), which are revered.

The Chinese stuff seems to be fantastic by all accounts, and the price...

Best of all, the support here is unbeatable.

Lastly, if I could only trade places with you for one day and go check out guitar shops in Nashville...

Keefinator02 said:

...These two play very well to my ears, and these prices seem reasonable based on what I am seeing...

Click to expand...

From what I can see, both of those look good (I love a sunburst!), and the prices look reasonable (though I'd ask about a 10% discount or more, which many stores might give you). BUT that's assuming the saddle is not too low, the action is good, and the neck angle is reasonably good. There are a couple other things you might want to take note of (like the flatness of the top, the string distance to the top just in front of the bridge...). These are things you can easily check. We'd need several more photos to be able to give you a better idea about the condition of these guitars.... Good luck! Guilds are the greatest!

I know you’d like to buy USA but you also mentioned looking at MIC Guild 12 strings. I’ve got this one. It’s an early GAD and it plays great. If you see one, you might want to try it out. Just wanted to share that I like this model a lot.

Warpedmirror,

This was my original thought as I was looking at getting a 12 string.

I was strongly considering getting the cheaper F-2512E then I moved up to the solid wood 1512.

Something like this:


I did not think I would be able to afford any of the US made Guilds at this point (saving for a new baby).

I just stopped in the store and saw the two beauties posted above.

From all the reviews I have seen the 2512-E & 1512-E are great guitars but when I saw you can get solid wood USA made Guild with a hard shell case for not much more it led me in that direction.

Cougar said:

From what I can see, both of those look good (I love a sunburst!), and the prices look reasonable (though I'd ask about a 10% discount or more, which many stores might give you). BUT that's assuming the saddle is not too low, the action is good, and the neck angle is reasonably good. There are a couple other things you might want to take note of (like the flatness of the top, the string distance to the top just in front of the bridge...). These are things you can easily check. We'd need several more photos to be able to give you a better idea about the condition of these guitars.... Good luck! Guilds are the greatest!

Click to expand...

I got him down 50 bucks off the 12 string without to much work.

He mentioned that guitar has been in the store for over a year.

I do want to get banjo and guitar lessons from this guy so I will probably try to get a couple of those with both of us still being happy from the deal.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Welcome aboard Keefinator!

Guildedagain said:

Westerly, from about 1970, closed in 2000 when Fender bought Guild. Great guitars, reasonable prices. The earlier 70's are lighter by about a pound than late 70's but the quality never ever went down and that's the most important thing about Guild, there is no bad time period.

Click to expand...

Hate to do this to you buddy, but Westerly's first guitars were M20's in '67. Then there was dual production t both Hoboken and Westerly til '69.

More important, because of the Fender-bashing still found in some sellers' ads, it's important to know Fender's purchase of Guild was finalized in November of '95 and Westerly actually closed in '01.

There's folks here (myself included) who believe that was high point of Westerly production, and that was under Fender's ownership.

So we kinda tend to distrust sellers who say their '96-'01 pieces are "pre-Fender" or were built "Before Fender ruined 'em"

Guildedagain said:

there's everything made afterwards, Corona, Oxnard, Tacoma, I can't keep track of it all, so these are not in proper order. Tacoma built guitar are gems by all accounts.

Serial number info is easy to find online, dating your Guild. These are good to keep in your computer for instant reference.

Click to expand...

Corona '02-mid-'04 did have some teething problems but appear to be aging well. Tacoma was '05-'08, New Hartford '09-'14.
There is a hole in the s/n records online from '97 to Tacoma, but our member Hans Moust, author of the Guild Guitar Book, should be able to correctly date any pieces from that period.

Also MIC s/n's aren't on the web.

Guildedagain said:

Best of all, the support here is unbeatable.

Click to expand...

Indeed.

I knew the right person would come along to put it all right ;]

At any rate, this is highly educational, for me.

Thx AD

A word about strings breaking over the saddle, when I bought my '70 Guild D 35, it was in dire need of a neck reset. Someone had already shaved the bridge. Richard at Gryphon strummed it once and said, imagine what it would sound like with a decent break angle. He also said don't think you are saving any money. Right on both counts. But I bought it for $250, stuck it in a closet for fifteen years, then spent $1100 on fixing everything. I was just thinking what a fine guitar it's turned out to be. Caught an hour of sun on my backyard bench earlier and played the hell out of it. the proper angle break made the guitar explode.

I am going back into the shop tomorrow to take a closer look at both those Guilds.

I will try to get some better pictures to post.

I would be more interested in that JF-30 if it was a natural finish.

I'd grab the F50, it will be much more versatile than a 12-string., and it has on-board electronics.

Not bad.

Keefinator02 said:

Not bad.

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Yep. That GC 12er looks good. Says condition is "great." I'd still have them check the action, saddle height, and neck angle. Then maybe see about a discount, too, but pretty good price already.

Going to have to try out some more guitars before I make any purchases.

Interested in getting my hands on a M-20.