3bolt79
Junior Member
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2021
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 35
- Guild Total
- 1
Hi all. This is my first ever Guild that wasn’t a Brian May. I picked this up at a local shop. The owner of the shop said he got it in with a shipping container full of very old PA equipment and mostly ultra low end guitars.
It was beat to hell by the look of it. It was missing a saddle for the high E string and had a cracked neck pup ring. The frets were ground down, but whoever did it didn’t crown the frets. It was filthy to boot, but came with a nice Guild branded case. It is from 1979.
Well, the shop owner had it up on the wall for 3 months and nobody made him an offer. He was selling it for $595.00 with the case. I have wanted one of these since the 70’s, when I was a kid. I didn’t have the money at the time, and the owner, whom I have known for many years, said if I wanted it I could put it on layaway for as long as I needed. I gave him a hundred bucks and he took it off the floor. Then Covid happened.
His shop was closed for awhile after that, and I had health problems, so I didn’t see him again for 8 months. During which time I had done some research and found that the roller saddles were made by Mueller and Sons in Germany. It turns out that the bridge and saddles were the same on many Framis guitars and I found a dealer in Germany that had a saddle set for this bridge for 15 Euros. I figured I would take a chance, and 4 months later the saddles arrived. They were Identical except for the mounting screw, which I had already in the case. I used the old screw, and the saddle treaded in perfectly.
Issue number two was the cracked pickup bezel. I bought a set from the Guitar Mechanic, but that was 80 bucks including the shipping. I waited a few months and, while trying to find another source, finally gave in and ordered the parts.
I also did some light restoration to the finish, and cleaned the guitar up, did some wet sanding and buffing and did some spot leveling and crowned the frets. I worked on this guitar, on and off, for about 8 months. There are still some light scratches if you look closely, but now it looks like a rarely played, all original guitar. I am all in about 700 bucks for this guitar which I would rate is in excellent condition. And here is a pic of the case and the guitar before I did any work to it.
