Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Mailman pulled up with the S100 from Canada yesterday. Declared at $1500 CAD, wow... but no charge or even sig required, probably no insurance.
The box was ridiculously small, thin and short like a Squier Strat box with the headstock of the Guild case pushing out, albeit in a layer of bubble wrap, but really packed like a sardine, good thing this was USPS and not UPS.
The case was ghetto shrinkwrapped as I advised by putting in in large bags and taping all the around it repeatedly especially around the latches to prevent the case opening in transit. I've seen it before, with the guitar coming out of the case, it's not good.
After getting it out of that cocoon and getting the case open, I found seller disregarded everything I said about packing the guitar, and didn't cradle the neck up to elevate the headstock up away from the case floor, insane, no gap, guitar actually resting on headstock, I don't even lay them on my bed like that and if you do while plugged in, you can hear it go flat.
So, then I realize that he took that white mini bubbly stuff and wrapped the guitar in that and then shrinkwrapped that over the guitar, all over, supertight, over and over. Canadian tape is a lot better than ours, I almost passed out trying to this sh*t off so I wouldn't hurt the guitar with scissors, like it was impossible to get off, I could'n even see the guitar for ten minutes, nevermind the nerve wracking frustration of trying to get it free from this without scratching the guitar.
Which was ironic, because once it came out, the first thing I noticed was fret sprout like razor wire, that had already been worked on, bad job that left marks in the binding and if anything made it worse, I mean we're talking dangerous, snags clothes, bedding, hands.
The strings were loose, off something else, all kinked up from some other bridge and tuner posts. They were only on for looks, no one played this guitar, or had a luthier look at it, etc.
I could tell the story about how "it plays like it always did" was just pure bs from someone selling a guitar and not even good enough at it to know if someone's going to have a surprise when they get it. The whole "under the bed for 40 years"... highly unlikely this guy sells lots of gear.
And another thing, this story about an old crack injected with glue is I think total prefab. It's never been cracked. It's got some checking there, I've seen this before, stress maybe in that area, but anyway, some crazing, just crazing, there's never been a crack or repair there.
The next thing I noticed was stupidly clean it was. Chrome, etc, too crazy clean, does not look its age. You could easily find reissues with a lot more wear.
No tarnishing of the bridge, zero wear to the switch tip. The Rosewood is very light colored, hasn't been used much, I couldn't even find a dent in a fret, but those ends... some frets even loose at the ends to the point of visibly pushing back down.
Not a lot of playtime. Maybe it's true, maybe it does play like it always did, with the frets sticking out and that's why nobody's ever played it.
Sad to say, my second Guild electric, and the 1st had atrocious fret edges down by the body, and the guy who worked on it said he refretted it, then said he didn't, but he did because they're twice the size of the S100 frets. I guess some people don't play the whole neck (?) and don't know but that's not an excuse for having razor frets sticking out that have been worked on before by any animal with a rasp.
Also noticed it was chunky, full featured ;] It ain't no lightweight. I was expecting light, but not quite.
I took the strings off and started cleaning it. And I'm looking at it thinking, why do they compare these to SG's as some kind of wannabe?
Because, I had SG's for years and this is more than SG, it's quite possibly bigger, thicker, it's bound, has infinitely better hardware, better electronics. It's not a competitor to the SG, it's better than the SG.
No such thing as a Phase Switch with a SG.
The build quality is sumptous. Why the frets are such a joke I don't know.
The neck is pretty hefty too, can't tell if it's C or U shaped, it's meaty.
Shrinkwrapping is good, but don't tape to chipboard case. This case is crazy extra nice. The guitar never went out.
The mummy, challenging. Wrapped around the headstock multiple times supertight with heavy tape.
Sweating bullets getting it out
Notice the strings below the bridge and above the nut, yikes...
The box was ridiculously small, thin and short like a Squier Strat box with the headstock of the Guild case pushing out, albeit in a layer of bubble wrap, but really packed like a sardine, good thing this was USPS and not UPS.
The case was ghetto shrinkwrapped as I advised by putting in in large bags and taping all the around it repeatedly especially around the latches to prevent the case opening in transit. I've seen it before, with the guitar coming out of the case, it's not good.
After getting it out of that cocoon and getting the case open, I found seller disregarded everything I said about packing the guitar, and didn't cradle the neck up to elevate the headstock up away from the case floor, insane, no gap, guitar actually resting on headstock, I don't even lay them on my bed like that and if you do while plugged in, you can hear it go flat.
So, then I realize that he took that white mini bubbly stuff and wrapped the guitar in that and then shrinkwrapped that over the guitar, all over, supertight, over and over. Canadian tape is a lot better than ours, I almost passed out trying to this sh*t off so I wouldn't hurt the guitar with scissors, like it was impossible to get off, I could'n even see the guitar for ten minutes, nevermind the nerve wracking frustration of trying to get it free from this without scratching the guitar.
Which was ironic, because once it came out, the first thing I noticed was fret sprout like razor wire, that had already been worked on, bad job that left marks in the binding and if anything made it worse, I mean we're talking dangerous, snags clothes, bedding, hands.
The strings were loose, off something else, all kinked up from some other bridge and tuner posts. They were only on for looks, no one played this guitar, or had a luthier look at it, etc.
I could tell the story about how "it plays like it always did" was just pure bs from someone selling a guitar and not even good enough at it to know if someone's going to have a surprise when they get it. The whole "under the bed for 40 years"... highly unlikely this guy sells lots of gear.
And another thing, this story about an old crack injected with glue is I think total prefab. It's never been cracked. It's got some checking there, I've seen this before, stress maybe in that area, but anyway, some crazing, just crazing, there's never been a crack or repair there.
The next thing I noticed was stupidly clean it was. Chrome, etc, too crazy clean, does not look its age. You could easily find reissues with a lot more wear.
No tarnishing of the bridge, zero wear to the switch tip. The Rosewood is very light colored, hasn't been used much, I couldn't even find a dent in a fret, but those ends... some frets even loose at the ends to the point of visibly pushing back down.
Not a lot of playtime. Maybe it's true, maybe it does play like it always did, with the frets sticking out and that's why nobody's ever played it.
Sad to say, my second Guild electric, and the 1st had atrocious fret edges down by the body, and the guy who worked on it said he refretted it, then said he didn't, but he did because they're twice the size of the S100 frets. I guess some people don't play the whole neck (?) and don't know but that's not an excuse for having razor frets sticking out that have been worked on before by any animal with a rasp.
Also noticed it was chunky, full featured ;] It ain't no lightweight. I was expecting light, but not quite.
I took the strings off and started cleaning it. And I'm looking at it thinking, why do they compare these to SG's as some kind of wannabe?
Because, I had SG's for years and this is more than SG, it's quite possibly bigger, thicker, it's bound, has infinitely better hardware, better electronics. It's not a competitor to the SG, it's better than the SG.
No such thing as a Phase Switch with a SG.
The build quality is sumptous. Why the frets are such a joke I don't know.
The neck is pretty hefty too, can't tell if it's C or U shaped, it's meaty.
Shrinkwrapping is good, but don't tape to chipboard case. This case is crazy extra nice. The guitar never went out.
The mummy, challenging. Wrapped around the headstock multiple times supertight with heavy tape.
Sweating bullets getting it out
Notice the strings below the bridge and above the nut, yikes...
Last edited:
. Another situation I recall was when I responded to a Craigslist ad for a Guild D-25 that was in worse shape than I was lead to believe. The ad had pics that looked like they were taken with a crappy flip phone whist the person was in the middle of convulsions. The meet up spot was the guys trailer house and though I try not to pass judgment you could tell it was a bad side of town. Half the trailers there were abandoned and strip mined for their copper pipe and wiring by the local junkies. Why I didn’t just do a 180 and leave is beyond me but I knock on the door and the guy selling the guitar answers. Shows me the guitar in a case that reeked of cat pee and stale cigarettes much like the inside of the trailer. The guitar was just worse for wear, needed a neck reset with very high action, no shortage of top cracks and the bridge was reattached with two unsightly bolts with what looks like epoxy squeeze out from under the bridge. I tell the man I wasn’t going to pay $600 for this thing as he claimed in the ad it was playable which wasn’t the case at all. He makes a lousy crappy claim that acoustics were supposed to be hard to play with high action. I wished him luck with the sale and declined buying it. And that just put him in a rage, calls me a lying cheat/tire kicker among other less pleasant things and started throwing stuff around and just when the phone rang and he went to pick it up I knew was my time to get in the car and get the hell outta that dirty cesspool. I was fully prepared for the worst as mad as that guy was there was no telling what he’d have done.
