I know there are a lot of elite Guild minds here so I wanted to take a shot. Does anyone know the type of spruce used on the 1987 Westerly RI factory D50s? I have a beautiful example of one that I have listed and a buyer wants to know more about the type of spruce. I’m at a loss and would appreciate any help by those here. Thanks, and let me know if I need to provide details.
1987 D50 Question
- Thread starter ZacR
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geoguy
Senior Member
I believe that Westerly was only using Sitka spruce for acoustic guitar tops in those days. Pretty sure that Adirondack spruce was used on some models, only beginning with the Tacoma factory.
Westerly Wood
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+1. Sitka.
adorshki
Reverential Member
As others mentioned, probably better than 99% probability it's sitka and for sure we (or at least I've) never seen anything from a credible source stating they used Adirondack prior to Tacoma, as Geoguy correctly thought.
What has confused the market a bit in the last few years is that when Tacoma introduced Adirondack tops, they also revived the "Bluegrass Special" model name originally used for the sitka-topped D50s introduced in '63.
By '87 those names weren't being used any more.
But some folks thought that because modern D50's used Adi then the vintage ones must have, too.
However Guild had a long-standing tradition of sourcing their woods a little differently than "the Big guys" and what they considered "standard" could easily have been "AA" by some makers and Guild's "select" or AA tops have been said to be as good or better than some makers' "AAA".
However, don't take my word for it, direct your buyer to this link:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?178790-Guild-Sighting-David-Byrne-on-a-Guild-A-E!
Guild's factory manager at the time ('87) and sole wood buyer/grader since the early '70's was a guy named Willie Fritscher and when it came to selecting wood he was DA MAN.
:smile:
Last edited:
adorshki
Reverential Member
Linking function not quite correctly used but can just cut & paste the bare links I weeded out to see the pics.
Yep gorgeous back, and does top have just a tiny hint of bearclaw by the lower treble bout side?
Probably the only thing that made it wind up on a D50, as opposed to a D55 or F50, other wiseyes there's that consistent silking across the entire top, supposed to be an indicator of a well-quarter-sawn top.
As far as I can tell, Guild must have quarter-sawn all their tops.
And just realized I accidentally pasted a previously copied link, I actually meant to link an article from Guild about wood selection, so here you go:
http://www.westerlyguildguitars.com/articles/woodselection.pdf
sailingshoes72
Senior Member
Beautiful rosewood on the back of that guitar. If it sounds as good as it looks, I'd have a hard time letting go of it as well! :smile-new:
davismanLV
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Wow!! Beautiful guitar!! Later on they did some BG (bluegrass) versions and at some point (again later on, maybe even Tacoma) they had Adirondack spruce tops, but that looks like Sitka to me. Either way, i'm glad you're hanging on to it!! I would..... :encouragement:
adorshki
Reverential Member
Rich Cohen
Senior Member
I don't see the pics of the guitar. Why not?
adorshki
Reverential Member
Click on the bare links in my quote in post #6, the file format wasn't compatible with the image linking function.
But those'll take you to the Imgur page.
:friendly_wink:
SFIV1967
Venerated Member
SFIV1967
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@Al: In general yes, but adding the "g" at the end of the filename (before .jpg) gives you a scaled down size picture. Not sure if that always works and there might be other "tricks"/"codes".
Ralf
Ralf