Guild T-100 Blonde Archtop 1959 Reviews 
5 / 5 based on 1 reviewsI had avoided the Web for almost three years. I just knew it was gonna be sponge for time. But about a year ago I logged on.and I was right. Have you ever seen how many guitars are on the web? Heck, on ebay alone there must be thousands.
So how do you pick the one that's right for you! Well, I've always had my heart on a Gibson Les Paul Custom. The first one I fell in love with was in a music store, in a small open-aired mall in El Paso, Texas, back in 1968. It was black and it was a beauty. But I never had the money for one back then, and I still don't have the money to buy that old '68 Les Paul today (jeezz do you know how much that guitar cost now?!).
Buy now I've spent about a month hunting guitars on the web, realizing that Gibson is too rich for my blood, I decide to check out the Gretch guitars, hoping for better prices.ha ha. Sitting amongst the auction items was this Gretch/Guild/Gibson guitar. I thought, this has to be something special to have been made by all of those great guitar makers combined. It turned out to be an ugly photo of a Guild guitar. The guitar had some red nail polish smeared right where your arm couldn't ever cover it, smack there on the face. The descriptions said '52 Guild T-100, appears all original except for the bridge, the trim is pealing back some on the cutaway, case is not original but functions. The fellow had a starting price of $850 for it.
I placed it in my items to watch file and started to research Guild guitars. The more I looked, the less I found. Man, you can find vintage information on Fenders, Gretch, Gibson and may others, up the gazoo, but not for Guild. I found some vintage guys, that had good information on collecting guitars, but they did not collect Guilds. All the while, this orangy Guild is on my mind.
In the mean time I had corresponded with the seller of this guitar to find out if there was a serial number on the guitar, and to ask why he advertised it as a Guild/Gretch/Gibson. His email said that he labled the guitar, in that manner, hoping it would draw more visitors to his auction, and he also sent me the number, and I was back on the Web trying to find out how old this guitar was. I finally got some help from the Guild Guy, a really nice fellow, who told me it was a '59.
Buy now it was 6 days into the auction, and I can't get this guitar out of my mind, with one more day left. I had noticed that no one was bidding on this guitar. I sent him an emai stating that I would offer him $600.00 for the guitar, if it did not sell at auction. The auction closed with no bidders. About three days passed, and I assumed that I had insulted the seller, and my hopes of getting this guitar was long gone. To my suprise, I get this email saying that he's willing but wants more than my offer. I am not a collector, nor am I a connoisseur of guitars, I needed help so I turned to my luthier and said here's the deal.what should I do. He assured me that any guitar, new or old, is gonna need some work, and that an older guitar is better 'cause once you get the neck straight, it'll stay there. Taking his advice, I go back to the barganing table and we settle on $725 plus shipping.
The seller's wife carefully packed the guitar and case withing a box that was filled to the max with those nasty little foam peanuts. I pullthis old dusty guitar case out of the box as I wondering if I just made the worst guitar purchase in history. As I open the case I'm surpised to find this very old looking, very dirty, guitar. The knobs were all wooden. It had these cream colored, plastic, soapbar type pickups, and starring me in the face was the red fingernail polish. I pull the guitar out of the case and I just start smiling. Man, this things still together. I plug it into my small, Randall amplifier and my ears started smiling. This guitar sounded so sweeeeet. Everything worked. I sprayed a little tuner cleaner on the electronics, but they never even missed a lick. No scratching, no humming, just clean rich sound.
I started cleaning it up. I used a furniture cleaner from Holloway House to remove the many years of grime. Some mag wheel cleaner, from my garage, made the bigsby tremolo just sparkle. I used some Goop to remove the nail polish (you can use it on cured varnish surfaces). Some Q-tips and a tooth pic helped round out the details. When I was finished cleaning, I put the old Guild on a guitar stand, sat back in my recliner, and could not believe how beautiful she was. Not only does she sound like notes from the Heavens, she's some eye candy. My wife says that the old gal reiminds her of a restored '57 Chevy. And blonde.even though the sun has yellowed her cream trim and wood, she's gorgeous. There isn't one inch of this old Guild that I am not thoroughly in love with.
What bothers me most about this guitar is that I have not had one, to play on, for the last 30 years. If I did, I might be a guitar wizzard by now!
Every detail o f this guitar is of exceptional craftsmanship.There are no wide spaces between any pieces that fit together. The action is smooth and quick. The frets are worn, but that's fixable. The neck is straight as an arrow and intact. There is some fine checking in the finish, but not on the wood itself. There are only a few minor scratches and no belt buckle marks. The trim at the cut-a-way is peeling back, but it is all there, and can be glued back on. And the bridge can be replaced with a like original Bigsby bridge, that they still manufacture using the original dies.
I have had the guitar only a couple of weeks, but it seems like we are old friends. I want to take it to my luthier, for repairs, but I can't bear the thought of letting her get out of my hands. I was skeptical about buying and old guitar, that I could not touch or play, from someone I new nothing about, but I took a gamble. I have never been so satisfied with a musical instrument (ssshhh.don't tell my wife).
Fred Alvarez rated this unit
on
2001-06-27.
