NGD (ish)

BeardyAndy

A couple of months ago I spotted an unusual looking Guild electric in the "for parts not working" section of eBay that also just happened to be a year of birth guitar. I bought it thinking that i'd get it up and running and flip it but I've fallen absolutely head over heels for it!
So it's far from stock and much like me looks a bit old and battered but it's not just great for a 70s guitar, it's a great guitar.

I bought the body, some of the harness, saddle bridge and tuners. Had to have some new tuners fitted (Allparts Vintage 3x3 on a strip) and the pickups are a HB P90 made by Jake Parkhurst at No19 Pickups/Parkhurst Guitars and a Seymour Duncan Antiquity in the bridge.

It was originally an S60-d so would've had twin Dimarzio single coils but at some point a blind man went at the body with a blunt chisel so now you can fit humbuckers. It's got a 24 3/4" scale length so it feels nice and familiar but the fret access is so much better than my LP Junior or my Strat, yes I fitted a kill switch but mostly because there was a spare hole in the scratch plate and plus its a bit of fun!

Next is to get a new scratch plate made up and one day a re-fret to make good the bad fret job that was done before, other than that I'm the happy owner of an American made, set neck vintage guitar and it only owes me about £400.


PS WTB - If anyone has one and is looking to sell then please hit me up as i'd love a spare, I also quite fancy the SG shape like Kim Thayil uses but they seem to hold their value better.

russpm

Hey that looks pretty cool man, pleased for you, brilliant!

THR1LLHAU5

Right up my alley, this. Looks fantastic. How's it sound?!

John_A

Love that, Guild made some cool guitars!

rpr

Bandmate had the bass version of that - I owned the SG alike for a while, had some kind of stereo switch on which worked as a kill switch.
Yours would work well with a pair of SDS1s, the dimarzio strat sized soapbar pickups. I have an old 70/early 80s one its a great sounding pickup.

BeardyAndy

THR1LLHAU5 said:

Right up my alley, this. Looks fantastic. How's it sound?!

Thanks. Sounds good, I know that's a lot to do with the pickups but it's got plenty of sustain and is quite loud acoustically. It's light too, lighter than my mim 70's Strat. Mahogany body and neck, rosewood board.

It feels very Gibson to play but to give you an idea I've just thrown my Les Paul Junior at my guitar guy who did the final set up on the Guild and asked him to "Make it play like the Guild!"  

Philly_Q

Cool guitar, and because it's not all original it's the sort of thing you can make very much "your own".

Funkfingers

BeardyAndy said:

at some point, a blind man went at the body with a blunt chisel 

That remark is Harrysevenist.  

BeardyAndy said:

If anyone has one and is looking to sell, then, please, hit me up as i'd love a spare, I also quite fancy the SG shape like Kim Thayil uses but they seem to hold their value better.

HarrySeven definitely has/had at least one Guild S series guitar. Perhaps, he would be willing to sell one? 

RichardT

Brilliant score, they're genuinely excellent guitars. Stupidly cheap until a few years ago, now starting to get the recognition they deserve. If you fancy a change of tone/look Guild's own 60s/70s humbuckers are good and can be found (and the modern repro HBs as mounted on some new Starfires etc. aren't too shabby either)

ICBM

That's very cool. Although it's a completely different guitar it has a lot on common with my '67 Rickenbacker 450...

Year of birth guitar
Very little other than the neck and body are original
Hacked for two humbuckers by former owner and/or a semi-trained beaver
An extra hole which invited a useful mod (stereo output jack, on mine)
Was very cheap for a 'vintage' guitar

Keep it. You'll never get anything as perfect for you for that sort of price again.

BeardyAndy

ICBM said:

Hacked for two humbuckers by former owner and/or a semi-trained beaver

  

Henrytwang

I’ve got with original D60 with the SDS  pickups etc. I’ve owned it for around 35 years and I think it cost me around £140 used. I think that it was built to a very high standard, in fact I’d compare the build quality to that of a PRS.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

That's very cool. Although it's a completely different guitar it has a lot on common with my '67 Rickenbacker 450...

Year of birth guitar
Very little other than the neck and body are original
Hacked for two humbuckers by former owner and/or a semi-trained beaver
An extra hole which invited a useful mod (stereo output jack, on mine)
Was very cheap for a 'vintage' guitar

Keep it. You'll never get anything as perfect for you for that sort of price again.

Absolutely.  I've given up on the idea of year of birth guitars (I'm 1964) and I don't go looking for them, but it would be great to find something beaten up (and relatively cheap) which could be turned into a good playable guitar rather than just a curiosity.

Iamnobody

Nice! Is it a ‘78 - I’ve been looking for one for the same reason.

SteveRobinson

Always buy your YoB as early as possible. I only wish I'd bought a 59 Les Paul in the early sixties but my 10 shillings birthday money didn't stretch to it.

BeardyAndy

Iamnobody said:

Nice! Is it a ‘78 - I’ve been looking for one for the same reason.

Yes it’s a 78. I’ve owned a 79 Strat and a 78 Tele, both of which were ok but didn’t push my buttons. 

This one is absolutely my go to guitar now and if you ever see me on stage it will be with this!

BeardyAndy

SteveRobinson said:

Always buy your YoB as early as possible. I only wish I'd bought a 59 Les Paul in the early sixties but my 10 shillings birthday money didn't stretch to it.

That’s why I bought a 78 Tele last year because I figured soon they’ll be out of my reach, trouble is it was just ok, cool as hell but just ok!

I couldn’t justify a £1000+ guitar to have sitting around and not use so I sold it, this one fills the void nicely!

chromatuna

Thumbs up from me, I have a soft spot for lesser known guitars. Great to have something unusual that you can make your own which also happens to be an excellent player (as long as there’s no pointy headstock ;-))

SteveRobinson

BeardyAndy said:

I couldn’t justify a £1000+ guitar to have sitting around and not use so I sold it, this one fills the void nicely!

Much nicer. I've fancied a Guild "axe" guitar myself since I was a lad.

Bigsby

Oops, a year late to the party, but better late than never...

That's a great find, these Guilds are lovely guitars - unless the shape puts you off, which for some strange reason it does with some people... A 'player's grade' birth year guitar is a great thing to own. 

I don't have a BYG, but I've owned my S-60 since I bought it new in 1978, and a 'lifer' is also fun to have. All those dents, dings, scratches, gouges and chips are personal.  It was the first 'decent' guitar I owned, and I just loved the design - I just wished I could've afforded the S-300 model. Sometime around 1989, just before my last band broke up, this was fitted with a Roland guitar synth - we had a pretty cool recording set up and I wanted to be able to control the sequencing with a guitar, as my keyboard skills are extremely limited!



This benefited from a 40th birthday tidy up from @FelineGuitars who did a great job on a refret, new electrics and GraphTec Ratio tuners (the original open back tuners were the only real weakness in the original spec). It also got a Railhammer Hyper-vintage pickup, to replace the Invader I (foolishly) put in there c.1981. I do still have the original pickup, but decided I'd rather keep modding than start restoring.

BeardyAndy

@Bigsby man that looks great, and considerably less hammered than mine!