Los Angeles
Senior Member
So for those of you who saw the thread in the ebay forum, I found this on ebay last week and bought it instantly. I had sworn off reissues a long time ago, partly because of build problems/fit-and-finish issues with the late 90's ones, and partly because I just prefer HB1's over SD's every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Now, you can swap out pickups, but I never ever want to have to re-route a guitar. It's just not my thing to alter an instrument so drastically, you know?
I heard tell of early early reissues with HB1's and saw the covers on this baby and got so excited that I hit the buy-it-now.
Here's a photo with the strings off. I love the classic roller-adjustomatic bridges. I love the classic flat-top toggle. And those gotta be HB1's right?
That's when I heard that in 1994, Guild actually put HB1 covers on SD's. Man, that threw me for a loop.
Getting the guitar, the truth is revealed:
But there's a silver lining here. The routed holes are the right size to swap out HB1's without re-routing. It's possible that the height adjustment screws could be a little long on original HB1's for the depth of the hole, but that's a much easier fix.
The ebay pic was blurry, but there was a possibility of the guitar being #14 and there was also a possibility of it being #74. What I got was a bigger mystery - what the heckfire is going on with this serial number? Is that an 8? Or is it just the strangest placement for a ding on the planet?
Considering all the other features, there's no doubt in my mind that this is a 1994. The adjustomatic, the HB1 covers, and the very high build quality, the rounded corners of the fretboard, the fit and finish of the fretboard and binding all seem to confirm this.
Moving on, the guitar had some kind of bizarre "system" type of strap pegs on it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the original strap pegs were in a small zip lock in the case. I've changed those back out. Same type of screw threads, so they fit back in nice and tight.
Frets show a bit of wear, but not necessarily needing to be addressed immediately.
I'll post more pics but this is a working weekend. I'm still considering moving this guitar on to a new owner, but it is growing on me.
I'll be back later.
I heard tell of early early reissues with HB1's and saw the covers on this baby and got so excited that I hit the buy-it-now.
Here's a photo with the strings off. I love the classic roller-adjustomatic bridges. I love the classic flat-top toggle. And those gotta be HB1's right?
That's when I heard that in 1994, Guild actually put HB1 covers on SD's. Man, that threw me for a loop.
Getting the guitar, the truth is revealed:
But there's a silver lining here. The routed holes are the right size to swap out HB1's without re-routing. It's possible that the height adjustment screws could be a little long on original HB1's for the depth of the hole, but that's a much easier fix.
The ebay pic was blurry, but there was a possibility of the guitar being #14 and there was also a possibility of it being #74. What I got was a bigger mystery - what the heckfire is going on with this serial number? Is that an 8? Or is it just the strangest placement for a ding on the planet?
Considering all the other features, there's no doubt in my mind that this is a 1994. The adjustomatic, the HB1 covers, and the very high build quality, the rounded corners of the fretboard, the fit and finish of the fretboard and binding all seem to confirm this.
Moving on, the guitar had some kind of bizarre "system" type of strap pegs on it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the original strap pegs were in a small zip lock in the case. I've changed those back out. Same type of screw threads, so they fit back in nice and tight.
Frets show a bit of wear, but not necessarily needing to be addressed immediately.
I'll post more pics but this is a working weekend. I'm still considering moving this guitar on to a new owner, but it is growing on me.
I'll be back later.
