This Guild question came up on another forum.
Who owns the 'Made in China' Guild GAD guitars now, is it Cordoba Guitars or is it still owned by Fender?
In typical "can't let it drop" fashion, I'd just realized that perhaps the real question was whether or not Fender retained the rights to the "GAD"
brand and I suspect they may have since they actually "invented" it.
Marketing and distribution for it was always handled by Fender Corporate, Guild US never touched 'em.
Even if that brand
was sold along with the Guild intellectual properties, CMG obviously had reasons of their own to introduce their own brand for that product.
We HAVE determined that
both the GAD guitars (were) and the Westerly Collection guitars
are made by the same contract manufacturing entity in China, GREE, as evidenced by the identical inspection tags seen on both brands.
And to be fair, GMG has expanded the offering beyond what I would ever have anticipated, in fact I have to admit I see some of these models and think "Dang, I wish they'd make that a US-built!" as in the case of the OM240, which would have the specs of an arched back F30 if it had actually been built in Westerly RI.
And I don't think they ever did off the top of my head, at least, not for production. (!)
Reading between those lines I think CMG's unspoken master plan is to actually make the imports the centerpiece and innovation hotbed for the Guild Brand, and reserve US production capacity for higher-end models which can provide the profitability needed to keep Oxnard running.
Sort of like the old car manufacturer model of giving 'em a taste with Buick and dangling Cadillac as the aspirational purchase when one finally has the requisite ducats.
And I can't fault 'em for that, regardless of my being a US-built loyalist.