Starfire 4 Tuners

coastie99

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My '85 SF4 is a factory custom with some non-standard features. I have just realized that it's fitted with Schaller Mini tuners. I assumed these too are another custom feature of my guitar.
I have just spotted a nice SF4 on Ebay which also sports Schaller Minis.
So, my question is, did Guild in its "Schaller" period, fit both standard and mini tuners ?
 

hansmoust

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coastie99 said:
My '85 SF4 is a factory custom with some non-standard features. I have just realized that it's fitted with Schaller Mini tuners. I assumed these too are another custom feature of my guitar.
I have just spotted a nice SF4 on Ebay which also sports Schaller Minis.
So, my question is, did Guild in its "Schaller" period, fit both standard and mini tuners ?

Hello coastie99,

So far I've seen 5 different types of machineheads on Starfire 4s from the '70s and '80s. During the time that your Starfire was made the majority of instruments had Schaller M-6 tuners in chrome and a Japanese copy of the Schaller M-6. The mini's are somewhat rare but after having seen a lot of Guilds from many different periods I've come to the conclusion that Guild always had a very pragmatic approach to 'factory specs'. They would put any kind of hardware on a guitar if they would see fit and if it would work.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
 

coastie99

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Hello there Hans.
Thank you for that information. I rather suspected that that may have been Guild's policy
I haven't seen "your" l/h SF4 yet. The nephew has promised a visit after his current trip to Oz-tralia. We're a 3 hour trip over the Southern Alps away from each other.
I do know that he is extremely pleased with his guitar (his wife is not ! ), although he is still coming to grips with it after a long period of Strat ownership.
Personally, I was very pleased to have made a convert !
 
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