JF- 26 ?

Guildedagain

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Prob some of the Guild employees would go out at lunchtime, get high, come back in and come up with these model variations?
 

fronobulax

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Prob some of the Guild employees would go out at lunchtime, get high, come back in and come up with these model variations?

"Pepsi Fridays" but I don't think you can blame on the production line. The "special edition exclusively for GC" explains this and a marketing weasel probably came up with the ID. "One better than the otherwise almost identical 25".
 

adorshki

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Google search pulled up a few LTG threads on it. Quick scan suggests it may be a jumbo run in 1995 made for GC related to the D26 also for GC, with slight cosmetic differences to the -25 series.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gui...FVs0KHWy7Df4QrQIoBDAAegQIAhAL&biw=375&bih=626

Basically yes except in this case it's a variation of the JF-4, itself a pretty obscure model being a true 17" jumbo with an arched 'hog back.
So now one wonders if the "-26" may have been created to denote GC specials exclusively regardless of the model they were based on.
The "formula" appears the same.
From here:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?143651-JF-26-Anyone-know-the-story
Other than the inlayed name, white binding and gold Grovers, it appears to be basically the same as my JF-4.
Guess I'll add one of these to my GAS list! 8)
I also note that the JF26 appears to have been HG whereas JF4's were "Satin" finish, at least when introduced.
Don't recall ever seeing a high gloss version of one of those.
 
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Guildedagain

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I always pondered GC's impact on guitar production... particularly in regard to the laughable QC and overall product quality (in oxymoron in this instance) of Gibson electric guitars through the time period when I actually frequented GC in person, usually for strings because favorite store was closed Like on a Sunday, or in the hope of finding a gem through the din of Metallica and Ozzy riffs. Twas a rare thing I ever found anything but ill informed sales people with misplaced attitude...

But those Gibsons were so shoddy that I had to wonder, were they special runs for GC, built at a price point for GC?

And then came on Sweetwater, Music 123, Musician's friend, and who knows who else. You can only imagine the demand on Gibson, Fender, Guild, Gretsch, etc to make instruments, and in the same vain of excess and glut, Gibson forces dealers to buy so much useless inventory that no one but GC is a Gibson dealer anymore, locally.

I thought GC was circling the drain a while back, but apparently is still around?

I rarely go to the city, have no clue if ours is still in biz or not, but would guess yes.
 
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adorshki

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I always pondered GC's impact on guitar production..
Well when Guild moved into New Hartford GC dropped 'em because New Hartford was flat out incapable of meeting their "minimum order(delivery) requirements", a least according to Fender's official line.
Ironic when one considers that Fender alienated many small dealers by imposing their own minimum stocking and order requirement which were not even consistent or combinable across all their brands.
There's also the issue that GC was Fender's single biggest customer and could have taken Fender down if they'd gone belly up and left Fender holding the bag for all those unpaid invoices.
And as it was, Fender tapped one of GC's honchos to become a Fender honcho, so this really was a family that played together in the worst sense of the term:
https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/larry-thomas

But those Gibsons were so shoddy that I had to wonder, were they special runs for GC, built at a price point for GC?
Strictly from all my readings here, I never got the sense that Gibson built to a lower standard for a given customer, but I can recall (I think it was Twocorgiis) somebody saying that somebody at Gibson who oughta know, saying that GC was the worst place to buy Gibsons.
Reading between the lines I think the real point was that Gibson sorted for the best stuff to send to their "best" dealers: The guys who knew the difference between dreck and the "real good ones".
GC by default never got anything but the typical hurry-up-and-get-it-built-stuff.
With the special Guilds the production was all so low that I think GC was just demanding something they could use for an up-sell or an exclusive.
I thought GC was circling the drain a while back, but apparently is still around?
Yep, lot of conjecture about their fate a couple of years ago, seemed like there was no way they could get their outstanding debt re-structured, but apparently they're holding on somehow.
We saw lots of anecdotes from members about "revamping" (shrinking )of inventories, and new restrictions on price negotiations for "vintage" guitars, and store closures, but still suspect somewhere in the background Fender's got their hand in, in keeping their biggest sales channel alive.
Maybe Gibson and Martin too, even Takamine and Taylor, now that I think about it.
Loan guarantees or even equity stakes, maybe?
Even easing up on payment terms can have pretty helpful impact.
 

fronobulax

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I always pondered GC's impact on guitar production... particularly in regard to the laughable QC and overall product quality (in oxymoron in this instance) of Gibson electric guitars through the time period when I actually frequented GC in person, usually for strings because favorite store was closed Like on a Sunday, or in the hope of finding a gem through the din of Metallica and Ozzy riffs. Twas a rare thing I ever found anything but ill informed sales people with misplaced attitude...

But those Gibsons were so shoddy that I had to wonder, were they special runs for GC, built at a price point for GC?

And then came on Sweetwater, Music 123, Musician's friend, and who knows who else. You can only imagine the demand on Gibson, Fender, Guild, Gretsch, etc to make instruments, and in the same vain of excess and glut, Gibson forces dealers to buy so much useless inventory that no one but GC is a Gibson dealer anymore, locally.

I thought GC was circling the drain a while back, but apparently is still around?

I rarely go to the city, have no clue if ours is still in biz or not, but would guess yes.

Random comments.

Special runs are not unique to GC. The late Mars Music commissioned some exclusive models from Guild and we have seen some interesting Guilds commissioned by a dealer in Reno.

If you are building a commodity you can't really afford to select the best specimens and send them to your best dealers and dump the dreck elsewhere. I would suggest the lousy Gibsons at GC are just a numbers thing. If 50% of your production stinks then the high volume dealer is going to appear to have a lot of lousy guitars. If I play two Gibsons and a mom and pop store and one sucks I buy the other or walk away. I don't really jump to a conclusion about the brand. But if I play 10 Gibsons and a GC and 5 of them suck then by definition everyone hears me claim Gibsons at GC suck.

GC bought Musician's Friend in 2000 and GC is still around. GC also owns Music & Arts which is a mid-Atlantic chain focused on band and orchestra instruments.

During the NH years I talked a lot to my local bricks and mortar store about the business. He said FMIC was a PITA because sometimes you could meet stocking requirements by combining across FMIC product lines but sometimes you couldn't. There was always a pretty good chance that they had changed those rules since the last order. Toward the end of the NH era he was really happy with FMIC/Guild because instead of having to stock a little of everything to be a Guild dealer he could pick which factories he stocked. He had MIC Guilds that remained unsold after two years but could not keep the MIM (Arcos) in stock and he loved not having to buy the MIC. (He said it was not a quality issue as much as a quirk of the local market - the MIC had too much competition at the price point). It was noted that this stocking did confuse the customer because "Authorized Guild Dealer" no longer meant what the customer expected.
 

bobouz

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Yup, sure looks like a JF-4 with a touch more bling, and I like it!

Re Gibson quality & being a lover of Gibson’s, I’ll just say that for Montana acoustics, go with anything from 1999 to date. Electrics: gotta get them in hand & assess piece by piece - there are some great ones out there.
 

3fingers&anub

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Happy New Year all at LTG! I’m new here to LTG and joined in hopes of finding some information on a guitar that I recently purchased finding out that this site obviously has a wealth of knowledge, my knowledge of music and guitars “neck body frets strings put fingers like this strum” Anyway noticed this thread jf26 and this happens to be the guitar I purchased and is the first guitar I have that is made in the USA, currently playing a Guid Westerly140 CE made in China of course but sounds amazing and was Curious what to expect:
 

gjmalcyon

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Happy New Year all at LTG! I’m new here to LTG and joined in hopes of finding some information on a guitar that I recently purchased finding out that this site obviously has a wealth of knowledge, my knowledge of music and guitars “neck body frets strings put fingers like this strum” Anyway noticed this thread jf26 and this happens to be the guitar I purchased and is the first guitar I have that is made in the USA, currently playing a Guid Westerly140 CE made in China of course but sounds amazing and was Curious what to expect:

I see a first post. Welcome and stick around - it is a nice bunch of folks around here. As you can see from earlier comments in this thread your JF26 is a pretty rare bird indeed. I have it's plainer, 12-string cousin, the JF4-12, and it is fine sounding and BIG guitar. There are days when my right shoulder protests when I swing my pick hand over the lower bout.
 

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i've never personally experienced poor quality in a gibson electric (acoustic, yes). i'd put my 79 LP artisan up against ANY era LP for build, finish, sound, playability...it's a very special guitar. i think any brand goes can have both exceptional and not so much exceptional periods and products. i've owned 7 toyotas...2 great, 3 very good, and 2 not so great. speaking of which, i was in a local, small time guitar repair shop and they had a TOYOTA electric guitar on the wall. somewhere i have a pic
toyota_bass.jpg
 

3fingers&anub

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So have been looking through some of the past forum post on the JF 26 and noticed there is no internal bracing and was curious as to what affects this has on a guitar is it more of a structural element or does it have a lot to do a sound the guitar produces thanks
 

gjmalcyon

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So have been looking through some of the past forum post on the JF 26 and noticed there is no internal bracing and was curious as to what affects this has on a guitar is it more of a structural element or does it have a lot to do a sound the guitar produces thanks

The top is braced, but the back is not. The back is laminated and was formed on Guild's legendary archback press. There has been some discussion here that the archback may provide a more "focused" sound.
 

Nuuska

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i've never personally experienced poor quality in a gibson electric (acoustic, yes). i'd put my 79 LP artisan up against ANY era LP for build, finish, sound, playability...it's a very special guitar. i think any brand goes can have both exceptional and not so much exceptional periods and products. i've owned 7 toyotas...2 great, 3 very good, and 2 not so great. speaking of which, i was in a local, small time guitar repair shop and they had a TOYOTA electric guitar on the wall. somewhere i have a pic


Antney - we had both LP Artist and LP Artisan @James Berns Music - 8417 Pillsbury Avenue S Bloomington 55420MN - Tel 884-1774 - if my memory serves me well . . .
Anyway - those two LP:s were wonderful guitars - no other LP came in the same ballpark.
 

3fingers&anub

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Thanks for the information, Patiently waiting for it to arrive via ups hopefully it sounds good appears to be in very good condition could you provide some information on the hog back(correct term?) what this does for the guitar.
 

adorshki

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Thanks for the information, Patiently waiting for it to arrive via ups hopefully it sounds good appears to be in very good condition could you provide some information on the hog back(correct term?) what this does for the guitar.

Welcome aboard 3fingers!

" 'Hog" is an accepted abbreviation for "Mahogany" and is considered to be a tonewood that enhances midrange response.
The primary function of a back is to reflect sound created by the top vibrating from the energy input of the strings being struck.
As such whether it's laminated or solid makes very little difference in that role, but for the record Guild's laminated backs were made of high-quality veneers with a center layer of something relatively less costly such as larch or alder.
The layers were glued up and steam pressed in dies that created the arched form.
One advantage of laminates is that they're very strong, stronger than the sum of the parts, and virtually impervious to cracking from low humidity.
If one likes the sonic characteristics created by the arched back, then it's an extremely "elegant" design: the form not only reduces construction labor of making braces and gluing up a solid flat back, it also enhances the function.
More about the sonic characteristics (and to be clear these ideas are my personal hypothesis based on observation and a slight understanding of some of the principles involved.
(Also, comparing a D25 and a D40 is bout as close as you can get to comparing identically-spec'd guitars differing only in their back construction):
The top is braced, but the back is not. The back is laminated and was formed on Guild's legendary archback press. There has been some discussion here that the archback may provide a more "focused" sound.
I respectfully disagree but it may be in what we mean by "focused"
The last "focused" comment I recall was in reference to the fact that the arch tends to act like a parabolic reflector and "focuses" the sound towards the soundhole, but I think that only enhances perceived volume somewhat.
I've always said the archback creates a much more diffuse sound because it enhances sustain and overtones to the degree that they can muddy up the sound for fingerpickers where that sustain clouds up the next note being played.
Makes for very lush sounding chords though.
I think that varying body depth created by the arch makes it "beef up" a wider frequency range than a flatback, explaining that "diffusion".
Flatbacks in contrast have a narrower more consistent body depth which in turn allows less propogation of phase interference and cancellation.
A few years back several folks agreed when I made the analogy that an archback's sound is like a parachute flare, it lights everything up but not with crisp clarity, whereas a flatback is like a stage spot, one narrow focused beam.
At least that's how I hear the difference between my D25 and my D40 (flatback) now, and further borne out by the fact the D40 records the best out of all 3 whether playing chords or leads: minimal distortion and clipping (a problem with the other 2 on a cell phone)and excellent individual note clarity.
On the bass end the analogy might be that the D25 sounds like a traditional standup bass (a characteristic I always loved and still do, it's "woody" as hell) but the '40 is more like a Fender P-bass.
It's just "punchy".
And until around 6 or 7 years ago when I really started bonding with it, I never got what that really meant when some of the old hands here used the term about their D40's and why they loved 'em over a D25.
It was also opening up steadily over all that time, too, which might explain why I never "got" why D40's had their rep until it was around 8 or 9 years old.
I get it more and more every week, now, though.
And to think it started off as the sonic runt of the litter, no kidding!

:friendly_wink:
 
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