I didn't mean to buy a GAD Guild today at Elderly

and really didn't want to!!
I walked into Elderly and the salesperson asked me what I wanted.What the hell i thought.I told him I wanted a dread for 1000.00 that sounded like a pre war Martin.He thought for a second and handed me a Larrivee and said play em all and see what ya think and walked away.I like that attitude.There are too many guitar stores if you touch one of their guitars they stare darts at ya.Now this Larrivee was a nice sounding guitar.But i've never been a Larrivee fan.Walking a fine line between Martin and Taylor with a bland sound of there own.That's just my opinion.And I've formed that opinion by playing all the Larrivees at Elderly repeatedly.I like a nice deal on a guitar and Larrivees hit a nice price point.I really have allways wanted to like them but it isn't to be.I played every guitar in the thousand and under range in the high end room and the Larrivee was still leading the pack.Then I ventured into the "other" room.Fenders,Tacoma,Blueridge and GAD Guilds.They had a Fender that blew away the Larrivee but it had electronics and that isn't necessary.Then I started playing tha GAD Guilds.The ads at Elderly are right.WOW.I was impressed.Then I picked up a GAD-25NAT.The cheapest of the cheap.I played it.Put it down played another.Played it again,played another.Played it again and realized this was the one.I searched all over for faults.Bad glue,loose braces....nothing.It looked gorgeous,sounded great and is now my 525.00 beater that looks too nice to be a beater.It looks to be sapeale with the nice chocolate brown stripes.Plays easy and sounds great.

Now the only thing lingering is what do the old Guild mahogany dreads sound like???
Thanks for your time.
Lickety Split
outa here

Lickety,

Congratulations on your acquisition. You know that regardless of what any of us old geezers say, all that really matters is what you hear, see and feel.

Good luck and keep on pickin'

West

Hey there, Lickety! You must live in my state, I go to Elderly all the time. Yeah, those GADS are a nice axe for the money, glad you were able to find one that made you happy, that's always a bonus.

Funny you should ask about the old Mahogany dreads, I have a '76 D25M (Bowed, unbraced mahogany ply back, mahogany sides, and spruce top.)
I bought it brand new from Grinnells Music in '76. It sounds roughly equivalent to angels singing when you put a new set of strings on it. (I guess you have to just imagine what angels singing sounds like...) It will hold its own with any Martin or Gibson in the bluegrass realm too - it's clear, bright, and loud with a real brassy low end.

However, tonight I just restrung my DV-52 with a new set of D'Addario phosphor bronze mediums I can't decide which one sounds best, but either one sounds better than a lot of the multiple-thousand dollar guitars I've played at Elderly...

By the way, did you play any Collings? Real sweet...but big bucks, i.e. $3K.

Yo drednut,
I'm a hour and a half north of you and two hours to Elderly.I make it down there every two or three months.

I didn't play any Collins.For once I picked a price range and din't want to play anything over the 1000.00 range.I cheated a bit and played what few Gibsons they had but they didn't interest me.I wish Elderly didn't lose the Gibson line.

I had to get the stigma of Chinese built guitar being bad out of my head to buy this.All solid wood for this price is amazing.It ain't the Trey Anastasio signature Martin I was dreaming of but it will suffice and be a good companion for my Martin 00-18CTN.

What do you have for stores inn G.R.??
I know there is a Guitar center and have been in a small store on 28th 3 years ago when I went down to see Los Lobos at Calvin College.Anything down there worth the drive??
Take care
Lickety Split
has split

Welcome aboard Lickety & congrats on the new addition! I only get 'round to Elderly about once a year, but it was a regular hang out for me back in high school.

What do you have for stores inn G.R.??

Click to expand...

GC is usually a waste of time. There's Firehouse on 28th a bit west of of 131, mostly Taylors, mostly overpriced. RIT up on Plainfield which is their new "combined" store since closing the doors on the Division store (was my fav). They had a few NOS Guilds last time I was there. Rainbow Music on Leonard which has a decent selection, but pretty small. All in all, a pretty un-remarkable selection of stores & no Guild dealers.

I wouldn't be too disppointed about Gibson, almost everything I've seen in their acoustic line lately has been crap - $2,500.00 mahogany guitars with overspray, unfinished areas, sloppy workmanship, sorry, no thanks. Although, having said all that I've played a couple Songwriters (rosewood) and one Working Man's J-45 I would've bought on the spot if I'd had 1200 bones in my wallet.

Regarding Grand Rapids, yeah Rainbow Music is the only serious guitar shop in town, although Rit/Middletons on Plainfield has 2 new old-stock Guilds hanging on the shelf, I just played them last night. A bit shopworn, but nice guitars. One D-40 NAT and a FCE47 Antique Burst (Mahogany sides & back). He wants to sell them, he has new HS cases, I have no $$$ to add the to my collection, but I wouldn't be looking for another mahogany guitar anyway.

Congrats Lickety. Got my GAD 40C en route. Will be here Friday.
Nice to hear you say some good things about the GAD series as it seems to be the whipping boy round here.
Benee Wafers

I don't know about "whipping boy", but I thought it was rather cheesy of Fender to retain the inlaid Guild name and logo on an import.

However, I've also remarked that these were the best axe for the price that I've seen and that the workmanship is outstanding. I particularly like the wood binding.

But they should've had their own logo. I have a DeArmond Starfire Special by Guild, beuatiful instrument, but it is an import and the inlay in the headstock says 'DeArmond", not "Guild". It cost about 1/2 the price of an equivalent Starfire III at the time ('98). I love this axe, but being a hand-made American Guild purist at heart, I'm glad they didn't just insert these into their product line with the Guild name on them.

OK I'll get off my soapbox now. I hope you guys both enjoy your GADS, they are a fine guitar.

Oh yeah with the Mother of Pearl headstock logo showing the Chesterfield insignia and the mighty Guild name, proud as punch, glowing right out at ya.
Benee

yeah, it would be real easy to mistake one for a real Guild just by looking at it...

Dred
You're operating under the misconceptions that 1. " real " Guilds are expensive and 2. they're made in the U.S.A.
Well that's just not true anymore. Guild now offers reasonably priced guitars which are made in China. Word has it that quality of materials, workmanship,playability and sound are up to the usual Guild high standards.
Now are the low end GAD's up to the high end MIA Guilds. Well the axiom " you get what you pay for" could certainly apply to the accoustic guitar world. How long did it take Fender Japan to begin producing the MIA equivalent Strats and Teles? And how long before the GAD China begins producing " high end " Guilds. Not very long.
If it looks like a Guild, plays like a Guild, sounds like a Guild and carries the Guild name.... its a Guild buddy.
Don't mind me Dred I'm just having some fun with ya.
And when my Tacoma D55 arrives I'll be real snobby about it too.
Here's to ya.
Benee Wafers
p.s. But when my GAD arrives this Friday, I'll be playing a real Guild.

GAD Guilds

After reading this thread, I have to say my piece about the GAD series Guilds. For the record, I live in Rhode Island. I've been to the late, lamented Westerly plant numerous times. I know people who worked there. I've owned a number of Westerly made Guilds in the past. That being said, the GAD-50 that I recently purchased is the best sounding Guild guitar that I've ever owned. It is so good, in fact that I am seriously considering selling my Martin HD-28. Guitar quality & sound have nothing to do with a country of origin label. Whoever is building the GAD series guitars is doing something special. I am not saying that ALL MIC Guilds sound better than ALL MIA Guilds or any other guitar for that matter, but the guitar that I own is amazing. It's not even broken in yet so it should get better with time. Considering the cost, it's almost a miracle. After owning this guitar, you cannot convince me that one needs to spend $1000 or more to get a professional grade acoustic guitar. I will never look at expensive acoustics in the same way again. If there is any negatve, the Amrican job issue is certainly valid, but I'm not here to discuss politics. If you haven't heard a GAD series, you owe it to yourself to search one out.

To each his own. I've played probably 15 GADs of various models, and none even came close to sounding like my Westerly Guilds. Like I said, nice guitars for the money, but they're not Guilds (in my humble opinion :lol, they're an imported Fender / Guild knockoff. You can call the imports "equivalent" or "better" than the American made ones all you like, but the market price will never bear that out.

What's in a name?

There is only one reason the US made guitars cost more. The cost of labor to build them. There is nothing magical in the materials, techniques or workers from Hoboken, Kalamazoo, Nazareth, Westerly or Corona that can't be duplicated in Shenzhen or Qingdao or Timbuktu for that matter. Westerly made guitars probably don't sound better than the GAD's you tried because of any inherent superiority of build or materials (although, I will concede a thin nitro finish on the top is better). I'd imagine that the biggest reason for the quality of tone is the age of the instruments. Acoustic guitars need to age and "open up" over many years to maximize their sonic potential. On the other hand, a crappy sounding new guitar is just going to age into a crappy sounding "vintage" guitar. If it sounds good now, it should only get better. I know that most Westerly made Guilds are fine sounding guitars. To be honest, in the past, I regarded Guilds as decent "strum around the campfire" guitars - indestructible, but not quite in the league of Martins or "good" Gibsons. My opinion has changed in the last several years after hearing some really good 25-30 year old Westerly models. Having said that, I'd really like to compare a new Tacoma made Guild to a GAD-series. Not having any Guild dealers around, I can only compare the GAD-50 to my HD-28 which is a few years old. My gut feeling is that if I A/B'd the two blindfolded when the Martin was brand new, it would be hard to say which one was "better". The Martin may have had a bit more bottom end, but the GAD-50's balance might be a bit better. Who knows? It's all subjective. Getting back to imports vs. domestic, my take is, having been to China and seen how their factories operate, once taught how to properly construct a guitar, Chinese workers are every bit as capable as anyone anywhere. I would think most Chinese factories would bear a closer resemblance to Nazareth in the 1930's than to Tacoma today. While I agree that many will always regard USA made guitars as being more desirable than their imported counterparts, that does not mean that the instruments in question are in fact superior. Remember Tokai Love Rocks & Breezy Sounds in the 70's? Those guitars are unquestionably better than the Norlin & CBS era Gibsons and Fenders that they copied. Still the market holds the inferior US makes to be worth more. I'll take the Tokais any day. Also, what about Ibanez? Alvarez-Yairi, high end Takamines etc.? They make some guitars that are as good as anything, anywhere. An entire generation of kids has grown up on these instruments. When they look back on their youth, many will regard these imports as their "vintage" guitars and therefore collectable. The same may hold true for today's MIK & MIC guitars and the generation that grows up with them (who will purchase the majority of their manufactured goods from foreign sources). I'd wager that the the # 1 criterion for desirability will be quality, not origin. The imports will only get better.

I'm sorry to say I get the feeling that the "tone" of this particular thread isn't opening up into something rich & warm.

We're all happy when one of us really finds the instrument that speaks to us individually! And I know there's a level of fun being had here, but don't misinterpret sentiment over the feeling that we've (when I say we, I mean a percentage of us here in the US) lost another great American icon as any sort of slam on the instruments themselves. There has not been a single negative word about the "quality" of the GAD Guilds from anyone that has played them. Simply that they're not the same. I've played a number of them & think they're fine instruments, but the GAD JF-30 I played is not the same instrument as my Westerly JF-30. I recognize & agree that the Chinese manufacturers are making ever better guitars than when they first began churning out the dime-store stuff. Face it, technology has narrowed the playing field in the instrument manufacturing field. But if personal preference & variety didn't enter into it, we'd all be playing Gibson J-45's & there would be no such thing as hand made Kim Walker guitars on backorder for several years, selling for $15,000+.

Enjoy your guitars, regardless of where they're from! If it speaks to you, we're all happy with you! If you got a lemon, we share your disappointment & have probably all been there.

c'mon, lighten up - I said they were great guitars, I'm merely saying let's call 'em what they are. You make a very good point about aging and so forth as it affects tone, but I think the American hand-made Guilds, Martins, Collings, etc. have yet to be matched by anyone in the world and the resale prices they command in the used/vintage market bear that out.
Keeping in mind of course that availability and rarity also affect the price in a big way - there are only so many Westerly F-50's, etc.

And I'm proud to be from Michigan, original home of the Gibson Mandolin & Guitar Co. 8)

I'm not very proud of what they're producing in Montana or wherever they build them now though. I'd be highly suspect of any Gibson built the last couple years based on what I've seen in the stores - largely poor workmanship, bad fit & finish issues. And they were doing real well in the years preceding that.

All good points and well taken...

I wasn't trying to stir up any trouble. I was writing more as a "devil's advocate" than anything else. The bottom line is, you can sure get a good guitar for a bargain price, nowadays. I wish that I had the variety of good imports available today when I was a kid instead of the POS Aria Dove copy that was better suited for firewood than music. It's all good for guitarists today. We have choices and quality that were unheard of even 20 years ago in acoustic guitars both expensive & inexpensive.

Case in point...I have a '70's Crestwood 12 string. Of course I haven't compared it with Guild 12's, but it IS a cannon with a huge sound which blows away a buddies Gibson. However, they weren't the most solidly constructed instruments so I've had to take an extra measure of care to keep it from pulling itself apart.

GAD versus Guild

OK - Let's get something straight - I'm an expert on absolutely nothing....expect what I like and love and know is right for me and me alone. Now that that's been established: Check out the list at the bottom here. That's what I currently own and I just bought another Westerly. Over the 35+ years of playing, repairing, buying, selling, teaching, recording and performing - I've pretty well established my own playing style and I know what I like and what works for me. I've said here before that someone else likes is fine for them, just don't try to convince me of something I know to be opposite.

I have owned literally dozens and dozens of guitars in my time - of all brands (except Martin - I've never found a Martin that I liked enough to purchase - for me). I've owned custom jobs, imports - everything. But, I've been playing Guilds exclusively now for at least 25 years and I know what a Guild sounds like, feels like, and that's the defining quality. The quality of workmanship on the Chinese GAD series is beyond reproach. The quality of Asian-made imports has risen exponentially over the last 15 years and there are some great guitars coming out of Korea, Japan and China.

I've sat in a number of music stores in many different cities, towns and states and played a variety of guitars to my heart's content. And, because I am recognized and known as a Guild player, many dealers have lain in wait for me to try the "new" Guilds. This has gone on since Frost had Guild back in the 80's. I didn't like some things Westerly put out along the way, but there was always a great percentage that smacked of that "Guild" sound. I even once participated in a "blindfold test" and the dealer was truly astounded I picked an old Westerly over other brands, Coronas and GADs.

Why am I telling you this? Because I have to agree with Dred and Don. We've been around a long time, played a lot of Guilds and we agreed - the GADs are nice, well made and pretty - but they are NOT Guilds in anyway, but in the name on the headstock. Fender can dance all they want to, but the GADs, just don't sound like a Guild. Now, you can say, well, they're new and haven't seasoned or matured like Westerlys. And that is true - but we've played enough new Guilds over the years to know the sound of a Guild - new or old. And the GADs just don't sound like a Guild - nor will they when they've aged 20 years. They will sound like what they are - nice guitars, but not Guilds. I agree - Shame on Fender - they should've called them something else - like "Fortune". If they called the Fortune - in 20 years, they would sound like matured, seasoned Fortunes....not Guilds. That's not to impune the GADs quality. They are just misnamed and it is a corporate device to confuse the buying public and sell more guitars on an old trusted name. A lack of ethics is a lack of ethics. (Of course, maybe in 20 years, they'll be known as matured GADs.)

As to the new Tacomas - the cards aren't in on them yet. So far, I've played about a dozen. They're nice - but they just don't grab me. I haven't played one that I would pay for - it just isn't for me. The Coronas were laquered crap with a handy pop-off bridge. The Tacomas still have the opportunity to redeem Fender's handling of the Guild tradition. Sorry, but I know what I like and by the look of the list below - I can tell you I'm willing to pay for what I believe in. See any GADs on that list?

But....if you like them and they are for you - GREAT! BRILLIANT! MAGIC! I just wish Fender had given them their own name and not tried to attach them to an existing tradition. After Corona - real Guild players were already aching and this step just didn't help. Goodnight and good hunting! dbs

Dudley-Brian Smith
Smithfield Fair

Ethics? Gee, there's a word I haven't heard in awhile. Thanks for backing me up on that one, Smith, it was the main point I was trying to make about the GADs.

On the other hand, the glut of knockoffs Fender injected into the marketplace can only serve to make the real Guilds more valuable over time. A wise investor would buy some Westerly Guilds and wait for the market to catch up with reality. (nah, I'd just play 'em.)

I'm real satisfied with my current line-up (even though my Starfire is a DeArmond, and labelled as such I might add) but I would like to get a flat back D-25M with a mahogany top sometime.

Smith, I looked at your pictures, is the black guitar one of your GF-25's? Just out of curiosity, why did you buy two of those? They must sound sweet. Do you guys ever come up Michigan way, I'd love to hear your band.