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Mine was a 77 but otherwise very similar. Long gone now im afraid but a lovely strumming guitar. Not sure that the imperials are original but my guild book is packed away so unable to check sorry.

vinylguy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 6:30 pm Mine was a 77 but otherwise very similar. Long gone now im afraid but a lovely strumming guitar. Not sure that the imperials are original but my guild book is packed away so unable to check sorry.

Cheers
The imperials seem to show up in lots of photos so they may be

They could well be be, I dont remember mine having them but specs changed regularly back then. (as did the owners of the Guild guitar Co). Unfortunately my copy of Hans Moust Guild book is packed away....

Lovely

Had a good little strum in the sauna this evening. We had a Martin D28 and a Taylor Grand Auditorium (walnut top/back/sides) for comparison to Ants' Guild. Here's a recording of all three. I won't say which order they are played in, but it's the same order of guitars for each of the three sections.

The Martin was held back a little by older strings. We were also limited by a cheap, poorly-suited microphone and a ghetto stand set-up (involving chairs, pillows and a hand-held pop filter). But we got there! A little comp, EQ and 'verb post-recording to match the sound in the room as much as possible.

robthemac wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 8:30 pm Had a good little strum in the sauna this evening. We had a Martin D28 and a Taylor Grand Auditorium (walnut top/back/sides) for comparison to Ants' Guild. Here's a recording of all three. I won't say which order they are played in, but it's the same order of guitars for each of the three sections.

The Martin was held back a little by older strings. We were also limited by a cheap, poorly-suited microphone and a ghetto stand set-up (involving chairs, pillows and a hand-held pop filter). But we got there! A little comp, EQ and 'verb post-recording to match the sound in the room as much as possible.

Wow... I just realised I cannot characterise and uniquely identify acoustic shapes and wood types just from their sound. I'd like to think #1 is the Guild. I'm guessing #2 is the Martin, and #3 Taylor. I could be wildly wrong though.

Martin, taylor guilt? Just a wild guess though as the differences i heard were minimal

Ah no cigar Jay

codedog wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 8:41 pm

robthemac wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 8:30 pm Had a good little strum in the sauna this evening. We had a Martin D28 and a Taylor Grand Auditorium (walnut top/back/sides) for comparison to Ants' Guild. Here's a recording of all three. I won't say which order they are played in, but it's the same order of guitars for each of the three sections.

The Martin was held back a little by older strings. We were also limited by a cheap, poorly-suited microphone and a ghetto stand set-up (involving chairs, pillows and a hand-held pop filter). But we got there! A little comp, EQ and 'verb post-recording to match the sound in the room as much as possible.

Wow... I just realised I cannot characterise and uniquely identify acoustic shapes and wood types just from their sound. I'd like to think #1 is the Guild. I'm guessing #2 is the Martin, and #3 Taylor. I could be wildly wrong though.

This.
Guild. Martin. Taylor.

You’re all wrong, they substituted in an Ovation, a Washburn, and an Ashton!

Yeh it was good fun having a comparison of the three acoustics.
Noticible things about the guild compared to the martin:
1. SIGNIFICANTLY heavier... tank like
2. The neck makes the martin feel like a tooth pick. The guild has a beefy neck. Feels ultra solid with all that binding and ebony too.
3. The play wear/patina is so satisfying, though it isnt beat up. there is an incredible wear line inthe laquer on the upper curve from forarm sweat and the radius of the plectrum wear extends well beyond the pickguard showing she was used to some heavy strumming..thunderous even...
4. Its not a boomy jumbo by any measure. It metres out a balanced jangly tone to my ear. Failry crisp present lows and very clear highs. Scooped. One thing I read and I now understand is that it has massive headroom. I didnt quite understand how headroom applies to an acoustic but now I do. Akin to strumming a clean single coild through a fender twin. There is jack hammer immediacy and little compresssion, in a pleasing way. Compared to say tha martin where there is a mid range bloom/hump that saturates the tone when strumed hard. Not saying either is better or worse just different.
5. The large body isnt as hard to work around as id feared. Im not going to say its the ideal sofa strumer but niether is it like trying to greco-roman wrestle a kelvinator fridge.
6. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, this guild has that 'dont want to put it down' factor that not many acoustics ive owned have had. When I got home from Robbies last night, tho I should have been packing, I just found myself noodling through a whole bunch of old acoustic tunes that I wouldnt have played for years. Interstingly it stired up memories of a dreadnought Eko I bought from a thrift shop in Dunedin for $10 as a student (that later got stolen from a parrty and was found dismembered in a park). That guitar was similarly tank like and built for high headroom strumming. At that time I was listening too (and playing) a lot of crowded house, simon and garfunkle, Beck and beatles. Was good fun to sit back and revisit a lot of that stuff last night.

The worrying thing about al this is that it might have ignited an interst in acoustic guitars....

Here are the test instruments with the gretsch officiating
Robbies guitar room has shades of guitar practice space/ heroin den/halfway house / turkish sauna. Glad he'd tidied up a bit.

That's a really nice looking piece. Congratulations!

kdawg2a wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 5:03 am That's a really nice looking piece. Congratulations!

Thanks mate
I knew it’d be a nice looker and ticks a lot of vintage aesthetic boxes for me , but I’m just relived it plays and sounds so good. Always a risk buying an acoustic sight unseen. However I was given a safety net by a guild collector friend of mine who said he’d happily buy it no questions if I decided not to keep it.

As it happens his most recent similar purchase was made in the UK and he payed the same number in British pounds then had the head stock seperate from the body in flight storage and on top of that it needed a neck reset ….

Slowy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 9:32 pm

codedog wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 8:41 pm

robthemac wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 8:30 pm Had a good little strum in the sauna this evening. We had a Martin D28 and a Taylor Grand Auditorium (walnut top/back/sides) for comparison to Ants' Guild. Here's a recording of all three. I won't say which order they are played in, but it's the same order of guitars for each of the three sections.

The Martin was held back a little by older strings. We were also limited by a cheap, poorly-suited microphone and a ghetto stand set-up (involving chairs, pillows and a hand-held pop filter). But we got there! A little comp, EQ and 'verb post-recording to match the sound in the room as much as possible.

Wow... I just realised I cannot characterise and uniquely identify acoustic shapes and wood types just from their sound. I'd like to think #1 is the Guild. I'm guessing #2 is the Martin, and #3 Taylor. I could be wildly wrong though.

This.
Guild. Martin. Taylor.

It was just before bedtime for me last night. I'll explain my "process" of guessing now.

I have never played a Jumbo but, when I heard the first strum, I thought it sounded glorious! It was what I would like a Jumbo to sound like. That's why I said "I would like...". I wasn't sure what the second one was, but it was reminiscent of kdawg's '74 ('75?) Martin dreadnaught. Then I heard the third strum and thought it had the Taylor sound. It's quite distinctive.

One thing that niggles... if the second one is Martin, the fingerpicking was surprisingly good. Almost like a nicely focused smaller bodied acoustic.

Dying to know the actual order!