Duane Eddy model?

[i want a d100]

Recently in a local paper here in the Saint John Valley in northern maine there was a photo of a band from the area called The Mustangs, in the photo that was from the early 60's if i recall correctly,you can just make out a guild headstock being held by one of the band's members.The photo was cut off so you could not see the body of the guitar. Here in northern maine there seems to be very little traces of the guild name. After tracking down one of the men in the photo, i talked to him today on the phone, he lives right here in [The Valley]. He told me that the headstock belonged to a guitar that was the model that duane eddy was known to be playing on his album covers. I don't know if it was a custom model or just a regular line that Eddy prefered.The man that used to own the guitar said he sold it years ago to someone in canada who ended up crushing it with a car,after talking to him for a while he said he would look through some old photos to see if he had a good shot of this guitar so i can post it here.Hopefully i will post a photo of it soon.A quick look in The Guild guitar book seems to show eddy with a couple of different models, a manhattan x175, which i know was not the model in the photo i saw because the headstock had an inverted g type headstock. I am going to call the band member again to see if i can get anymore info.Perhaps it was the Duane Eddy B, otherwise known as the T500.

 

[kpsta]

That would be the DE-400 and DE-500 - model built specifically for Duane. I believe that they started around 1960 in fairly limited numbers. I see them on GBase occasionally, and I'd be surprised if someone on LTG doesn't have one.

 

[The Guilds of Grot]

Here's my 1966 DE-400 (Sunburst)

Duane's were De-500's Blonde with the "G" Shield and older "lip top" headstock.






Oh, here he is now!

Note that in the next two photos the pick-up switch and master volume have swapped places. One arrangement was the prototype, and then it was switched at Duane's request. (I forget which was which. I think it was the master volume moved to the bottom like mine.)

 

[NEONMOONY]

Does the guitar on the album cover, the first pic of Eddy, have a regular, non Guild logo bigsby?

 

[i want a d100]

This is a good example how how interest in something i did not know about in any way teaches you about things years after the fact. I have never listened to DE and even thou i read through the guild guitar book dozens of times i really never payed much attention to his name. Now i am going to get some of his stuff on cd and see what it's all about.To find out that one of these rare guitars was crushed by a car is a killer for sure but because of that i will look into some of Duane Eddy's material.Does anyone know if there are any videos of Duane or if he guest stared on any tv shows?

 

[jmac]

I want a d100,

I felt the same way a few years ago and I got a bunch of Duane Eddy recordings. I tried to get into him, but for whatever reason it just didn't happen for me. The guitar playing was fine, I guess the songs just seemed kind of "hokey".

jmac

 

[guitarslinger]

One of the Duane Eddy's I have left.

Duane Eddy Story: During his heyday Duane Eddy was invited to play at the Grand Ol Opry. He was delighted til they told him they didn't allow saxophones at the Grand Ol Opry and that his sax player wouldn't be allowed on stage with him. He quietly declined the invitation. He experienced somewhat of a resurgance in the late 80's and early 90's when he was again invited to play at the Opry. Asking if he could now have a sax player and receiving an affirmative he went back and found the player who had once been unwelcome and built his performance around him.

 

[The Guilds of Grot]

Here's a few Duane Eddy video's playing the Guild!

Rebel Rouser (Early)

Crazy Arms (A Little Later)

Sugar Foot Rag (Even Later Still)

Cannon Ball (Around the same time?)

Peter Gunn (This is a little diferent!)

Don't Be Cruel

 

[matsickma]

Hey guitarslinger,

What is the story behind the pickups on your DE400. The pickups don't look origional. Are they Gretsch reissued Dynasonics? Also I thought DE400's only came in chrome hardware?

M

 

[hansmoust]

Hey guitarslinger,

What is the story behind the pickups on your DE400. The pickups don't look origional. Are they Gretsch reissued Dynasonics? Also I thought DE400's only came in chrome hardware?

M

Hello Mike,

Take a closer look! It's not just the pickups. I guess we could call this an interpretation of a Guild Duane Eddy.
Nothing wrong with it though!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

 

[The Guilds of Grot]

Interesting signature on the pickguard!

 

[guitarslinger]

Well and truly noted by one and all. This is the one I built. A computer crash a few months ago wiped out the pictures of my others of which Hans, I think, has the only copies. The signature is from a Gretsch on a repro guard.

 

[marcellis]

One of the greatest modern pieces of music. Theme song from movie of the same name.

Duane Eddy - Because They're Young

 

[kpsta]

I've found a '65 Duane Eddy locally, but it has some issues. Plugged in, it sounded great, but it's tough for me to make a judgement on whether it's worth the ~ $2700 asking price since I don't see them very often. I also realize that, for those of you who are familiar with guitar work, it may be tough to say without seeing the instrument in person. Here's what I can identify though:

The biggest thing to me is the frets - particularly below the 5th fret, there are significant divets. How would you fix that? Re-fretting the worn out frets or do the whole thing? I think smoothing them out would make for some very, very low frets down there. What kind of $ would that take to dress or totally re-fret?

Next, the volume and tone knobs are scratchy when you turn them - is that just dust that can be cleaned out, or should I be worried about replacing things inside?

There's a tiny bit of binding shrinkage on the cutaway. It looks stable though. Nothing I can do about that.

Finally, the pickguard bracket screw is missing. I think that should be easy to replace, but right now the pickguard pivots a bit from the joint. More of an annoyance than anything.

I also have some questions about the sound. My only Guild playing experience to date has been the Starfire XII, and they're so different. I just played the DE for a few minutes through a Pro Reverb, and it had a great jazz sound on the front humbucker. All things being equal in terms of set-up though... how different SHOULD a DE sound from something like a Starfire? It seems like it has a slightly deeper body, and although I don't have my Guild Book at work here, I don't think it has a block inside (as a bit of feedback when I was sitting there would indicate).

Anyone who has both a DE and Starfire(s) - how would you compare and contrast them?