Guild X-500 w/o a serial # stamp...how to date???

[kakerlak]

I neglected to mention the dealer stated the only non factory added item to the guitar was the noted aftermarket strap button install.

This is the second X-500 I've observed with Grover Imperial style tuners.

Dealer stands by his suggestion that the guitar is an '82 model based upon a parts number via a volume pot.

Gorgeous X-700! In reality that's what I'd actually like to own but every one I've seen has sold over $3k. I observed a Guild AA sell for $3.5k on the bay last week that appeared mint! Although the price was right it was still $1k out of my range.

Thanks for the input!

2b

Thanks for the compliment. This was my late father's guitar. Since he was a drummer, he never played it much, lol! It's really slick, though.

1982 seems reasonable. I think actual age for Guilds is a little less relevant than with some other brands that changed construction, hardware and electronics so many times. The only thing people around here seem concerned about is what's under the pickup covers once you start to get into late 90s and newer Guilds.

An AA would be a really nice instrument, but would be much more of a jazz-only guitar plugged in that an X series.

BTW, does this guitar have actual Imperials, or just Imperial buttons on Rotomatic bodies? (I think they called those "Super Rotomatics") I ask b/c I didn't think anything but AAs left the factory with Imperials, but anything w/ a Rotomatic footprint could either have buttons swapped or tuners swapped for super-rotos. The point being that Imperials, if original would be a custom touch.

 

[fronobulax]

It'd be neat to see if any of the Westerly factory folks could elaborate on the process of back-door guitars, employee one-offs, midnight specials, etc. In particular, I'm curious when the labels get glued in. It seems like it'd be easiest to glue them on before the back/sides/top are glued together, but I'm not sure that's how it was done.

What I'm getting at is whether it would have been possible/likely for an employee to have grabbed a partially-completed guitar from the line that would have been at a stage where there was a label in place, but no S/N stamp. Seems like if Guild had some sort of policy on guitars sold to employees not leaving w/ S/Ns, they might have said "pull the label out before you take that home."

Not necessarily relavent but the serial number went on the neck well before the guitar was finished and then it was copied to the label. Thus your theory only makes sense if the neck was replaced while it was in the factory.

At New Hartford the only serial number is on the label and that is not put on until final assembly. I seem to recall a roll of labels in the final inspection room at LMG I and got the impression that someone wrote the info on the label, entered the info in the ledger, loosened the strings, applied the label, tuned it up and gave it the final inspection.

It's just me, but if the guitar was not completed at the factory and entered into the production ledgers when completed then I'm not going to consider it a "real" Guild, at least when it comes to assessing price. Of course knowing Guild methods, the absence of a headstock serial number and a label does not necessarily mean it wasn't a production guitar. Knowing there are at least one pair of Starfire basses with identical serial numbers, labels that don't match the necks and guitars with no labels, nothing would surprise me.