Re: What inspired you to play Guilds?
Although I'd been playing since I was 12, I didn't have a halfway decent steel-string flat-top till around '88, an early '80's Fender F-210 that I helped my brother buy, but he never played it and gave it to me. Nice little Korean guitar with a "Set up in the USA" tag in the case candy. Always liked the headstock, had a little "wave" at the top with an MOP "Fender" logo.
Stolen out of my car around October '96.
Decided the replacement was gonna be a jen-u-wine 'Murrican made guitar 'til I started gettin' the sticker shock reading the Fender catalog (and the "other" two guys too)...but by golly was bound and determined to finally own a guitar that would be worth re-fretting, that's about all I knew about guitars at that point.
So one day my jamming buddy, proud owner of a bought-new first year JF30-12 says to me: "Ya oughta look at Guilds, Fender just bought 'em".
So I hied myself on down to the local Guitar Center (yes they stocked them in multiples at that time! :shock: :lol: ) and found a few on the wall.
Most important quality to me was actually playability, and this one particular D25 had a neck that was like nothing I'd ever felt before.
I had an epiphany as I finally understood what they meant went they said "plays like butter", and I knew somehow that that arched back design was pretty cool.
Tried a coupla Taylors, a Larrivee, a Gibson, another D25 and a Guild with a cutaway and built-in pickup, (think it was a DCE-1) but none of 'em felt like that D25.....
Didn't hurt that the salesman quoted me like 35% off list on that D25 with a case, he even offered to "get me a new one from the back", but at least I knew better than that, and to make sure I got THAT guitar with THAT neck.
Put over 200 hours on that puppy in the first 11 months and it's got over 1300 now. After a second fret job I think it's actually better than new except for a few cosmetic dings...
That's "Hally" in my sig. :wink: