Category: Guitar

Digitizing 2000 Pages of Guild Guitar Catalogs

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In 2019 I decided that I would digitize every page of every Guild guitar catalog and price list in my possession. How hard could it be? Kurt over at The Guilds of Grot even let me borrow his binder of additional price lists that I did not have resulting in a project of ridiculous scope resulting in a total of 61 catalogs, 66 price lists, and 100 or so miscellaneous ads and flyers for a total of over 2,000 scanned or photographed images, all of which had to be processed, retouched, straightened, converted to PDF and imported into the software for this site.

This took many months but since I have a job and an adult life this was a nights and weekends kind of project given the additional limitations of dealing with college kid sleep schedules and the general availability of everyone involved. This article outlines the equipment I used and the steps taken to achieve that goal.

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Guild X160 Rockabilly

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One of the toughest guitars for me to get ahold of has been the Guild X160 Rockabilly model. They may not be all that common, but I think the main issue is that the people who have them don’t want to sell them or when they do, they want ridiculous amounts of money for them.

Thanks to a trusted member over on the LetsTalkGuild forum selling his, I managed to lay my mitts on this beautiful orange example which I will play, dissect, and otherwise review for your reading pleasure.

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Guild Accupitch 440 Tuner

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It’s no secret that I have a penchant for rare Guild items, including but not limited to stuff that other people just wouldn’t buy. Take this Guild-branded quartz tuner from the early 1980s, for example. Hey, at least I didn’t buy the one that was listed for $75!

I thought it would be fun to write up what I could about this relic from a time before CDs when Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial were both in theaters.

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Guild Newark St. M75 Aristocrat

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Here we have a 2014 Guild Newark St. M75 Aristocrat in Gold. The gold top (goldtop) was a bit of a limited edition for guild that was only made for about a year before being discontinued, though it was not called a limited edition. Typically available in Antique Sunburst or Black, this guitar is fairly striking in appearance with its gold finish. Did I mention that this guitar is gold?

Read on while I go through the process of reviewing this guitar in all it’s goldtop glory.

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1997 Guild Starfire III

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Today’s bit of 1990s Guild goodness is a Westerly-made Guild Starfire III from 1997. This black beauty came to me by way of private sale after requesting a Westerly Starfire with SD1 pickups on a popular guitar site.

The mid-late’90s is my favorite era of Guild electric guitars. From the Nightbirds to the last days of Westerly, I just love every guitar I’ve come across from that bit of Guild history, so I am forcing myself to try my best to be open-minded about this 1997 Guild Starfire III because Hot damn – I love that! does not make for a very thorough review. Let’s see if I can find something I don’t like about this guitar.

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2016 Guild Newark Street Starfire III

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Having owned a few of the Newark Street series of guitars from Guild, I’d always been curious about the Starfire III, but I hadn’t ever bought one because I had a rather low price limit that I would pay and in over three years, I had never seen one available for that price. As you may have guessed by the fact that I’m reviewing one now, that has changed.

As you may be aware, I’m a hardcore US-made Guild freak, so if you’re wondering how this Guild Newark Street Starfire III is going to hold up to this cantankerous old bastard who’s not afraid to tell it like it is, read on, ’cause it’s reviewin’ time!

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1985 Guild D46

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This review is of a 1985 Guild D46 acoustic guitar which, believe it or not, is the first Guild six-string acoustic guitar I’ve ever owned. It is also the first acoustic guitar I’ve ever reviewed, so please accept my apologies in advance should I get any of the terminology wrong or if I just flat out write something stupid. Actually, scratch that last one; writing stupid things is what I do.

This is a fairly interesting guitar for a bunch of reasons, the most obvious being that the back and sides are solid ash. I tend to be drawn to uncommon Guilds, so let’s take a look and see how this one fares.

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Guild Newark St. T-Bird ST P90

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Today’s guitar is a Guild T-Bird ST P90 in Pelham Blue from the Newark St. collection. I scored this guitar in mint condition for a great price and had to buy it because it’s a fairly interesting combination of pickups, body shape, tailpiece layout, and controls. Plus it’s a Guild so the urge was appropriately amplified.

I’ve reviewed a 1964 S200 Guild Thunderbird, a 2016 Newark Street S200 T-Bird, and a 2017 Newark Street T-Bird ST, so what’s one more? Let’s take a look and see how this guitar fares when compared with its similarly shaped brethren.

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1985 Guild Brian May BHM1

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Over the years a few companies have built copies of Brian May’s famous Red Special guitar, and while they are pretty easy to come by today, that was not the case in the ’80s. One of the first to make one was Guild who, in the mid-1980s, produced a small number of these BHM1 guitars.

I’ve managed to procure one of these interesting pieces of Brian May and Guild history, so join along while I give it the detailed review treatment right down to the magnets in the pickups.

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