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PorkyPrimeCut wrote: Yours just happens to have the Guildsby (which I assume makes it a III).

That's exactly it. I found a brochure from the era and the Bigsby is the only difference between II and III.

And the "Guildsby" was invented to stop a fraudulent dealer.

Back in the early sixties Guild took back some guitars for factory repairs (under warranty I assume), and they found out that a whole lot of Starfire III's were returning to the factory, and hardly any II's... And that the serials of the Starfire "III"s sometimes were registered in the inventory as a Starfire II... So they investigated, and they found out that there was a shop that bought Starfire II's in bulk, bought separate Bigsby units in bulk, slapped them together and drew an extra "I" on the card in the soundhole... and bagged the profit. Guild was having none of that, so they asked Bigsby if they could make a Guild-labelled Bigsby that only the Guild factory could obtain. So that's how the Guildsby came to be.

I had one of these odd birds (TK-300) a few years back. Ended up selling it to a forumite in Australia. Liked it, just was spending more time on bass at that time and it wasn't getting enough attention.

Here's my 1974 JetStar 1

Here's a few I've had:

By the way, Guild lovers are most welcome over on the 'Guild Guitars: Made to be Played' group on Facebook.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/243306162 ... =bookmarks

MrFingers wrote:And the "Guildsby" was invented to stop a fraudulent dealer.

Back in the early sixties Guild took back some guitars for factory repairs (under warranty I assume), and they found out that a whole lot of Starfire III's were returning to the factory, and hardly any II's... And that the serials of the Starfire "III"s sometimes were registered in the inventory as a Starfire II... So they investigated, and they found out that there was a shop that bought Starfire II's in bulk, bought separate Bigsby units in bulk, slapped them together and drew an extra "I" on the card in the soundhole... and bagged the profit. Guild was having none of that, so they asked Bigsby if they could make a Guild-labelled Bigsby that only the Guild factory could obtain. So that's how the Guildsby came to be.

Thanks for the cool bit of historical info.

I can finally contribute!



Wow. Blows away the 335 I bought a few years ago in every respect (except the tiny frets). It's a Rhode Island made model, late 90's. Apart from a tiny bridge issue (I hate this style of bridge), it's perfect.

1968 Starfire -

kracdown wrote:1968 Starfire -

Good lord!!! That's beautiful. I really hope to be able to find one like this one day. I like the T100s too, occasionally a vintage one appears for a good price in the UK, but I never have the spare cash these days.

Might not stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the beauties in this thread, but here's my well-weathered 1980 D25

That's a thing of beauty!

kracdown wrote:1968 Starfire -

Wow - that's gorgeous, do envy. Was it retrofitted for the larger HB-1s? I thought the 60s Starfires had minis. Anyhow, time to change pants.

Here are my 2015 imports - an S-100 Polara and an OM-140. Hopefully I'll own some vintage Guilds someday, but for now these are pretty good.

This is coming in tomorrow...



Looks to be in excellent condition for 1965. This'll be my first vintage guitar ever, fingers crossed.