Ebay D-50 queries

[droach274]

Hi,

I saw this 1978 D-50 on UK ebay :
http://tinyurl.com/2dgece

A couple of queries :

* it says "red spruce" top. Does that sound right?
* what is a good price for one of these? Looks in good condition.

Cheers

 

[gilded]

Cool looking guitar. I don't think it's red (adirondack) spruce, though. It would be hard to find a adirondack spruce tree large enough to come up with uniformly even grain on a dreadnaught-sized top. Best guess? Sitka.

Not up on the pricing, especially across the pond. Good luck, though.

 

[GardMan]

I have been watching D-50s on eBay for more than a year (on my short list of Guilds to buy). A '79 D-50 recently sold on eBay for $750... but this was an anomaly. Very spartan ad, with little info on the guitar. More typically, '70s era D-50s in decent (VG) shape sell from US $900-$1400 (often outpricing D-55s from the 80s and 90s). An early '70s D-50 burst "special" (with block fret markers like a D-55) sold for ~$2300 a year ago. Prices in shops and Gbase tend to be ~ US $300-500 higher. That one looks to be in fine condition... in the States, I would expect it to easily go for $1000-1200 (550-600 pounds). But, I hear Guilds fetch a premium price in the UK, so wouldn't be surprised if it went considerably higher than that (600+ pounds), but won't hazard a guess.

From the grain and silking, and from what I have read re: spruce woods, I would say all the tops of my 70s-90s dreads are sitka. I would guess this one is, also.

 

[sitka_spruce]

Without question sitka on this one. Red spruce was an inaugurated feature of the Tacoma plant. The close and straight grains, the silk and the yellowish shade is all traits of sitka. Had you been thinking "What the... Is this the best spruce they could come up with for a quality instrument?!", then it would probably be red spruce - but as said introduced 2005 with Guild.

 

[JHCrawLaw]

Good looking D50! I "won" my '78 D50 on ebay about a year ago for $1,350 (US) in a VERY lively auction. It was near-mint and a great buy in the end.

The top of my D50 appears to be sitka spruce. Maybe the seller picked up his info from the specs for the current D50s.

Good luck!

 

[sitka_spruce]

Maybe the seller picked up his info from the specs for the current D50s.

Very likely, but then that would only go to show the limited knowledge the seller has of what he's selling. That wouldn't mean the instrument wouldn't be well cared for, though.

 

[droach274]

Good looking D50! I "won" my '78 D50 on ebay about a year ago for $1,350 (US) in a VERY lively auction. It was near-mint and a great buy in the end.

The top of my D50 appears to be sitka spruce. Maybe the seller picked up his info from the specs for the current D50s.

Good luck!

Grr. I got outbid. It went for 800 GBP in the end (approx 1,575 US).

I had decided to go as far as 700 based on the US prices and factoring in some extra for the UK price hike on guitars but someone really wanted it bad and just kept outbidding me all the way up to 800 at which point I bowed out. There was a large flurry of bids in the last 2 mins and it all happened so fast I nearly did something rash and bid more than I intended to I'm thiking it is probably best to decide beforehand how high you want to go and not act in the heat of the moment, tempting though it is at the time.

Oh, well - better luck next time

 

[droach274]

PS - I forgot to say Thanks for all the informative replies I got in this thread. This forum is great.

PPS - incidentally, when i was asking the seller some standard questions I mentioned that I had asked some Guild experts who were pretty sure his D-50 didn't have a red-sprice top. He was adamant that it definitely was red spruce, and that he had a lot of experience of Guilds and would know the difference. Not that it matters either way, just what he said. I'm not qualified to know either way - I'm not sure I'd even know the difference if I heard it

 

[JHCrawLaw]

Sorry it didn't work out for you. Those last two minutes on ebay can be brutal.

Hope another nice D50 comes up for you soon!