1996 Ebony X500

[Archie]

Hi all.

Stumbled upon this on Reverb

Guild X-500 Ebony Special 1966 - Ebony | Reverb UK

This is a beautiful one-of-a-kind Guild X-500, made in the USA in 1966. The X-500 was one of Guild's top of the line models, and this example has a custom ebony finish. It is a really beautiful instrument that plays and sounds fantastic. Everything is original except that it has been refretted...

reverb.com

Always been a big fan of the X500 series but looking at the neck on this one, the join at the body seems rather old fashioned.

Picture 7 shows the top plate binding only a few mm's lower than the neck binding. Sort of like how Gibson used to set their necks low to the top.

Is that standard on this model and era?

And am I making myself clear as to what I'm trying to point out?

Cheers!

 

[GGJaguar]

I think it may be a camera angle thing, but I checked this on my 1976 X-175 and X-500. Here are a couple of quick pix of the 175. Seems to be about the same as the ebony 500.

 

[chazmo]

Archie, the '60s era Hoboken Guild had a lot changes and experimentation with the fretboard extensions and how they float over the soundboards. That's what you might be noticing by comparison.

 

[Archie]

Thanks GG.

I’ll check my Johnny Smith Award too. I had noticed some with very thin fingerboard extensions on older Guilds and I've always been surprised how little ramping happens, compared to say Gibson's, which I find can ramp quite badly and often.

 

[Archie]

Archie, the '60s era Hoboken Guild had a lot changes and experimentation with the fretboard extensions and how they float over the soundboards. That's what you might be noticing by comparison.

Yeh just looks like there's quite a neck angle on this one but as GG demonstrated, the low profile neck is feature not a bug and the picture could be throwing me off.

In what way were they experimenting (neck angle, fingerboard hight, fret numbers etc..) why (what where they trying to change or overcome from their previous building style) and what do you think they achieved and settled on (obviously what they produced but what specific result did they achieve, that they thought was an improvement)?

I'd be interested to learn more if you have anymore details?

I can go over my scans in the near future and pull you out some hard data between the two era's but I'd like to know that buzz and chit chat at the time in the factory, which can't be captured in microns.

I find Guilds story incredibly fascinating.