Kurt's 1970s S200

GAD

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Kurt (Grot) asked me to post this for him in the thread where we were talking about it. I posted it here for search-ability.

GuildsOfGrot-1970s-S200.jpg


One of the interesting things about this guitar that isn't obvious from the pic is that the HB1 pickups have hex-screw pole pieces. I have one of those pickups in my collection which I could be convinced to take pictures of if you're interested.
 

GAD

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Here you go. The pickup measures 16k, so it's quite a departure from the normal HB1.

Guild-HB1-Hex-1.jpg


Guild-HB1-Hex-2.jpg


Guild-HB1-Hex-3.jpg
 

GGJaguar

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16 Kohms! Holy guacamole that's a hot pickup.
 

adorshki

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DiMarzio Super Distortions in disguise?

-Dave-

If it's early '70's isn't a wee bit too early for that?
BUT you did remind me of our member who posted the backstories about actually "being there", who was it again?
Ahh, here we go, post #1:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/sh...ickup-Identity-Case-(so-far)&highlight=torres
"Prior to 1976 the aftermarket pickup market was pretty much non-existent. If you had a pickup that went bad or wanted "something different" back then you had very few choices... You salvaged one out of a repair shop bone pile, ordered a replacement from the manufacturer (which may not have been possible with some odd/off brand guitars), or you knew someone who could rewind it for you. And you could count those guys on the fingers of one hand. They had names like Bill Lawrence, Larry Dimarzio, & Seymour Duncan. & they were busy guys with a pretty exclusive clientele... I hope you knew somebody, who knew somebody, who... well... you get the idea.
In Dimarzio's case he was hand winding custom pickups in his Staten Island shop. The first being the now famous Super Distortion."


Maybe you got somethin' there!
As in maybe Guild asked 'im to build some hot pickups for them?
Or else the guys at Guild were simply on to the same thing?
 
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Quantum Strummer

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Al, I think the Super Distortion (and Dual Sound: same thing but with coil-splitting capability) came out in '71 or '72 so it should be early enough. Of course the demand for hotter pickups was already there—thus Gibson's Super Humbucker (aka "Tarback") from around the same time—so Guild could've come up with much the same thing themselves.

-Dave-
 

adorshki

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Al, I think the Super Distortion (and Dual Sound: same thing but with coil-splitting capability) came out in '71 or '72 so it should be early enough. Of course the demand for hotter pickups was already there—thus Gibson's Super Humbucker (aka "Tarback") from around the same time—so Guild could've come up with much the same thing themselves.

-Dave-

Got it.
:smile:
 

koaguilds

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Thanks for posting that pic GAD. It's a wonderful guitar. I still swear the one I saw was from the 90's and had the small Guild headstock like on a JF30 but with a G Shield inlay and the exact fretboard inlay type as found on a JF65 etc... Nothing like that overseas one from the reverb link. I wish I could find where I saw it posted. The poster wasn't calling it an S200, referred to it as a deluxe level prototype (maybe it was just a custom order?) and it didn't have the diamond inlays. The pearl block inlays with the abalone V in the middle.

I'm leaning towards a custom order.
 
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Wulfthar

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Kurt (Grot) asked me to post this for him in the thread where we were talking about it. I posted it here for search-ability.

GuildsOfGrot-1970s-S200.jpg


One of the interesting things about this guitar that isn't obvious from the pic is that the HB1 pickups have hex-screw pole pieces. I have one of those pickups in my collection which I could be convinced to take pictures of if you're interested.

This is a quite interesting guitar to be reissued because I think the originals are quite rare, is there any chance we get enough interest on this board to ask Guild for a "special order" from their Korean partner? For instance, 30 or 40 guitars should be sufficient to place a custom order.
 

fronobulax

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This is a quite interesting guitar to be reissued because I think the originals are quite rare, is there any chance we get enough interest on this board to ask Guild for a "special order" from their Korean partner? For instance, 30 or 40 guitars should be sufficient to place a custom order.

From a strictly economic standpoint, I would ask whether the differences between the vintage S-200 and the Newark Street S-100 are significant enough to justify a "reissue". Given the rumors that the S-100 had (has?) the lowest sales numbers of the first/earliest Newark Street models, I'm not sure the market is really there. I will note, in passing, that "rare" does not always imply "desirable" or "valuable" when talking about Guilds. The only "special orders" that I can recall have been exclusive to a particular dealer and were just an existing instrument model with a different finish. Given the difficulties of managing production on another continent I'm not certain CMG would consider more complex special orders as profitable at this time.

Welcome to LTG, by the way :)
 

Default

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They have shown no interest in us, so I doubt that they would bother. They are too busy posting on Instagram to pay any mind to such an antique as LTG.
 

Wulfthar

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From a strictly economic standpoint, I would ask whether the differences between the vintage S-200 and the Newark Street S-100 are significant enough to justify a "reissue".

Well, given that this guitar is the equivalent of a SG Custom with high power pickups I would say yes.

I am a little surprised to hear the S-100 is a low seller as its design is very conservative and I ddin´t expect to sell less than for instance a Thunderbird. for the semiacoustics I would expect them to be the best sellers of the range.
 

DThomasC

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This is a quite interesting guitar to be reissued because I think the originals are quite rare, is there any chance we get enough interest on this board to ask Guild for a "special order" from their Korean partner? For instance, 30 or 40 guitars should be sufficient to place a custom order.

Would you be paying for the 30 or 40 instruments up front, or would you be asking CMG take the financial risk? Two very, very different things. "Special runs" that go to a specific dealer are of the first type I would guess, but I'm just guessing...
 

kakerlak

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Well, given that this guitar is the equivalent of a SG Custom with high power pickups I would say yes.

I am a little surprised to hear the S-100 is a low seller as its design is very conservative and I ddin´t expect to sell less than for instance a Thunderbird. for the semiacoustics I would expect them to be the best sellers of the range.

I'm not surprised it's a low seller. It's one of the models that's new street price is very close to both vintage and '90s US reissue prices. There's a lot more room b/w $700 and $3k Aristocrats than there is S-100s. It's the very same reason that stuff like the AP Aristocrats were such tough sells -- they were sitting at the same price point as the vintage original instruments they were copying.
 

Los Angeles

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Just my opinion, but the first batch of Newark Street S-100s sounded like total garbage. I was stoked to buy one of the first ones in Santa Monica and left the store absolutely furious that guild could mess up that guitar so horribly.
 
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