SFIV1967
Venerated Member
NAMM 2013: Newark St.™ Collection electric models
"Guild is proud to announce the Newark St. Collection, the return of eight classic Guild electric favorites from the 1950s and ’60s—once again putting the distinctive Guild styling and voice that helped shape popular music into the hands of today’s guitarists.
Newark St. Collection models are handcrafted instruments with authentic Guild electric tone and superior feel. Premium features include authentic Guild body shapes, arch radii and neck profiles; authentically vintage-style pickups and hardware; improved playing action ideal for today’s alternative styles; and more."
The whole series can be seen here.
Following new models were introduced for 2013:
S-100 Polara™
Starfire™ III w/Guild® Bigsby®
Starfire™ IV
M-75 Aristocrat™
X-175 Manhattan™
X-175B Manhattan™ w/Guild® Bigsby®
A-150 Savoy™
A-150 Savoy™ Blonde (it's actually not a ninth model but just a color option)
Starfire™ Bass
People might ask: "Why the name Newark St. ?"
The Guild Hoboken factory was officially located on 300 Observer Highway from November 1956 till December 1971,
but Newark Street was the street just behind the buildings.
And I guess "Newark Street Collection" sounds better than "Observer Highway Collection"...
(EDIT 2/9: I changed this picture to reflect the correct Guild building, see later input from Hans)
Here's a closer look:
Now everybody wants to know where and how the Newark St.™ Collection models are made:
Mike Lewis (FMIC project leader for the Newark St.™ Collection) explained to me that Guild purchased original guitars for each model on ebay or from other sources and sent it to their factory in Korea (SPG) with the task to exactly reverse engineer all used materials and construction.
No change in materials and construction was allowed. The task was to recreate the original as good as possible.
SPG in Korea is the factory that is "handcrafting" the Newark St.™ Collection models for Guild.
Another factory in Korea (another FMIC supplier) is responsible for all metal hardware and for the pickups (Boo Heung Precision Machinery, Korea = BHK).
All the new pickups in the Newark Street models (and the American Patriarch models) were copied exactly by BHK from the Guild provided vintage originals.
Again Guild/FMIC told them to not change anything, no change in materials or design was allowed. No change to magnets, wires, windings,... So according to Mike Lewis the pickups are real Guild® pickups but just not manufactured in USA...
A 3rd factory in Korea is responsible for the production of the Guild® Bigsby® B60 Vibrato Tailpiece. (they seem to call it B60 version now).
The most important message I was asked to share:
The Newark St. Collection models are not intended to be re-issues of previous models!
Because they are not 100% exact re-issues and hence can't be called re-issues. They are very close copies but not 100% "copy exactly" copies. (see little differences like different label, different TRC, different fret size, different fingerboard radii, different finish, sometimes different bridges,...).
Guild calls them "The 2013 version of the <insert model>." Similar to what you see with the Fender Strats and Teles. They use a vintage design with upgraded appointments and features to accomodate today's players, and not a collector of '50ies or '60ies guitars. So I was asked to give them a chance, also to come potentially with different color options for some models in future.
One more maybe interesting information: The headstock of some of the used original models had the "lip top" design. For the 2013 Newark St. models the headstock shape was changed. They now have the typical Guild "center-raised" style, however the shape of the rest of the headstock is still like it was on the "lip top" headstocks. The lower part is a bit wider than the top part. So the new headstocks look like they are more curved. Most will not notice, but have a look in Hans' book on page 26, look at the middle headstock there and compare it with the M-80 headstock on page 27 on the right side. You will see what I mean by the wider lower part of the old "lip-top" headstock. So it's a combination of an old and new headstock shape.
Here's a picture how part of that long display wall looked at NAMM:
Note that the background is a picture of one part (the East side?) of the old Neumann Leather building in Hoboken, however that was not the part of the building where Guild was. Hans wrote that Guild occupied the 6th floor (and that building in the picture only has 4 floors) and later moved into the second floor of the building. Hans shows on page 12/13 in his book the building on Observer Hwy from the West. Or see above.
Those Newark St.™ Collection models were so new that even Kim Keller told me he had just seen them one day before NAMM!
I have to say they seem to have an amazing build quality! They easily could be US build models looking at the build quality of the displayed prototypes.
There was a lot of interest from the public during NAMM, people constantly had them off the wall in their hands and played with them.
It's definitely worth to watch the following video, Mike Lewis gives a good overview about each model of the Newark St. Collection:
(One thing is incorrect, Franz wasn't a European company...)
To be continued with a model by model review...
"Guild is proud to announce the Newark St. Collection, the return of eight classic Guild electric favorites from the 1950s and ’60s—once again putting the distinctive Guild styling and voice that helped shape popular music into the hands of today’s guitarists.
Newark St. Collection models are handcrafted instruments with authentic Guild electric tone and superior feel. Premium features include authentic Guild body shapes, arch radii and neck profiles; authentically vintage-style pickups and hardware; improved playing action ideal for today’s alternative styles; and more."
The whole series can be seen here.
Following new models were introduced for 2013:
S-100 Polara™
Starfire™ III w/Guild® Bigsby®
Starfire™ IV
M-75 Aristocrat™
X-175 Manhattan™
X-175B Manhattan™ w/Guild® Bigsby®
A-150 Savoy™
A-150 Savoy™ Blonde (it's actually not a ninth model but just a color option)
Starfire™ Bass
People might ask: "Why the name Newark St. ?"
The Guild Hoboken factory was officially located on 300 Observer Highway from November 1956 till December 1971,
but Newark Street was the street just behind the buildings.
And I guess "Newark Street Collection" sounds better than "Observer Highway Collection"...
(EDIT 2/9: I changed this picture to reflect the correct Guild building, see later input from Hans)
Here's a closer look:
Now everybody wants to know where and how the Newark St.™ Collection models are made:
Mike Lewis (FMIC project leader for the Newark St.™ Collection) explained to me that Guild purchased original guitars for each model on ebay or from other sources and sent it to their factory in Korea (SPG) with the task to exactly reverse engineer all used materials and construction.
No change in materials and construction was allowed. The task was to recreate the original as good as possible.
SPG in Korea is the factory that is "handcrafting" the Newark St.™ Collection models for Guild.
Another factory in Korea (another FMIC supplier) is responsible for all metal hardware and for the pickups (Boo Heung Precision Machinery, Korea = BHK).
All the new pickups in the Newark Street models (and the American Patriarch models) were copied exactly by BHK from the Guild provided vintage originals.
Again Guild/FMIC told them to not change anything, no change in materials or design was allowed. No change to magnets, wires, windings,... So according to Mike Lewis the pickups are real Guild® pickups but just not manufactured in USA...
A 3rd factory in Korea is responsible for the production of the Guild® Bigsby® B60 Vibrato Tailpiece. (they seem to call it B60 version now).
The most important message I was asked to share:
The Newark St. Collection models are not intended to be re-issues of previous models!
Because they are not 100% exact re-issues and hence can't be called re-issues. They are very close copies but not 100% "copy exactly" copies. (see little differences like different label, different TRC, different fret size, different fingerboard radii, different finish, sometimes different bridges,...).
Guild calls them "The 2013 version of the <insert model>." Similar to what you see with the Fender Strats and Teles. They use a vintage design with upgraded appointments and features to accomodate today's players, and not a collector of '50ies or '60ies guitars. So I was asked to give them a chance, also to come potentially with different color options for some models in future.
One more maybe interesting information: The headstock of some of the used original models had the "lip top" design. For the 2013 Newark St. models the headstock shape was changed. They now have the typical Guild "center-raised" style, however the shape of the rest of the headstock is still like it was on the "lip top" headstocks. The lower part is a bit wider than the top part. So the new headstocks look like they are more curved. Most will not notice, but have a look in Hans' book on page 26, look at the middle headstock there and compare it with the M-80 headstock on page 27 on the right side. You will see what I mean by the wider lower part of the old "lip-top" headstock. So it's a combination of an old and new headstock shape.
Here's a picture how part of that long display wall looked at NAMM:
Note that the background is a picture of one part (the East side?) of the old Neumann Leather building in Hoboken, however that was not the part of the building where Guild was. Hans wrote that Guild occupied the 6th floor (and that building in the picture only has 4 floors) and later moved into the second floor of the building. Hans shows on page 12/13 in his book the building on Observer Hwy from the West. Or see above.
Those Newark St.™ Collection models were so new that even Kim Keller told me he had just seen them one day before NAMM!
I have to say they seem to have an amazing build quality! They easily could be US build models looking at the build quality of the displayed prototypes.
There was a lot of interest from the public during NAMM, people constantly had them off the wall in their hands and played with them.
It's definitely worth to watch the following video, Mike Lewis gives a good overview about each model of the Newark St. Collection:
(One thing is incorrect, Franz wasn't a European company...)
To be continued with a model by model review...
Last edited:
