Today’s review is this beautiful 1999 Guild Starfire V in blue. Starfire Vs from this time period are relatively uncommon, but finding one in blue like this is a real rarity. A long-time fellow Guild collector had this one in his clutches forever and finally caved into to my incessant requests to sell it to me so long as I promised to give him first dibs should I ever decide to sell it. That means if you’ve already fallen in love with it from this picture alone, either prepare to offer me a lot of money, or prepare for disappointment when you offer to buy it from me. And yes — spoiler alert — it’s that good. Let’s take a look.
Category: Interests
Guild Dimensional Reverberation System
I bought this Guild Dimensional Reverberation System when it popped up for sale a couple of years ago figuring that I’d never seen one before so it might be fun to research and write about. I’m not sure “fun” was the right expectation because after moving it around on my desk for over a year, well, read on and see for yourself.
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Identifying Guild Clear G-Shield Knobs
After buying some clear Guild knobs on Ebay and doubting their veracity, I realized that there was no way to determine if they were accurate. I decided to do what any detail-obsessed nerd with a macro lens and stupidly powerful studio lights would do: I figured out the differences, photographed each, and wrote this article so that others might know the the subtleties between four eras of clear Guild G-shield knobs. (more…)
Guild Guitar Catalogs, Price Lists, Ads, Flyers, and More!
I have added a dizzying array of images and PDFs after digitizing thousands of pages of catalogs, price lists, and related ephemera, all relating to Guild Guitars.
You can find all of them by clicking on the Guild Guitars menu item at the top of every page, or you can access them directly via the following links. Please note that these are pretty hefty pages containing hundreds of images so they may take a bit longer than normal to load depending on your connection and the state of the Internet (and my server) when you make the request.
I may add more sections such as Amp Schematics and Manuals in the future. Keep an eye on that menu bar because that’s where any additional resources will go.
That’s it for now. Watch for a long explanation of the incredible amount of work that went into this project.
Digitizing 2000 Pages of Guild Guitar Catalogs
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.
Guild X160 Rockabilly
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.
Guild Accupitch 440 Tuner
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.
Everett B. Donahue
Everett B. Donahue was my dad who was taken from me in 1982 through the brutal ravages of cancer. This page is to celebrate him because previous to me publishing this page, the only thing that showed up during an Internet search of his name was his death notice and no one should be remembered solely from a short blurb in a newspaper obituary.
Born in 1929, he was 52 when he died. He had told me only a few days after my senior prom that he was sad that he couldn’t afford to pay for me to go to college and just wanted to see me graduate high school. He died the day after I graduated. I was 17 at the time. (more…)
Guild Newark St. M75 Aristocrat
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.
1997 Guild Starfire III
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.