PS - My first good guitar was a sixties flat-back spruce-top D-25. Wish I still had it. Happy memories.
Charlie I think you've said that before but there was never such an animal.
It would have been a D
35, although it's entirely possible it was mis-labeled.
They were
both introduced in '68.
And in fact only recently did I realize that early on, the D35 far outsold the D25, going by the s/n charts: 233 D25's by end of '69 (and only
30 of those
from '69!) vs
1592 D35's (!).
OK, It's also likely that there are "invisible" numbers from '69
Although one can't sort by model starting with the '70 charts I'm guessing the D25 never really came on
strong until it got the spruce top.
Well Tom, no one knows the answer to that, not even Hans, I bet, because they didn't really keep track of which was which during the changeover from flat to arch and from 'hog top to spruce.
Right, one can't tell which is which by s/n alone, and I don't think Hans has ever made a statement about it, even though he's corrected the Guild Guitar Book about when the archback was introduced.
So I think if he was willing to make an estimate he would have told us by now.
18 months of production is about right,
maybe up to 24 if for example there were more than 6 months of production in '72 and '74:
By far the most reported sightings of all-hog arch tops are '73's, but we've seen 'em dated as early as '72 (assuming they were dated correctly) and as late as '74, and even one far outlier from '76: member SpiderMan's guitar was labeled "D25M" even though it had a 'hog top.
The "most likely scenario"
deduction is that they started introducing the archback while the flat backs were still in production and then started phasing in the spruce tops while the all-'hog archbacks were still in production.
It's entirely possible that they built both 'hog and spruce top archbacks at the same time since I'm sure they had enough body bucks to build both types simultaneously and/or if, for example, they got enough orders for the 'hog tops to justify making a run even though they'd "officially" changed to spruce.
It's also possible that during both transitions they had finished or near-finished "old spec" inventory waiting for dealer orders which they continued to finish and ship even though they were only building to the "current spec".
That could explain flatbacks dated as '73's and even that far outlier '76 mentioned above.