DeArmond Hammer
Member
I've been wanting a sunburst CE-100 Capri for years, so when I recently had two opportunities to get one, I got two.
I met up with @mavuser on Thursday and assumed stewardship of his 1958 CE-100D, s/n 7081. It reportedly had just one owner before him, and it came with a batch of vintage case candy in its vintage Lifton case. The guitar is inlay-challenged and has some other signs of age, but it's a solid player. The Franz pickups sound big, and they can get raw. (They're surprisingly great for surf!) I'm loving the iced-tea burst and the translucent knobs.
The 1964 CE-100-D, s/n 36151, in three-color sunburst, came a couple weeks ago from a jazz cat in Oregon who owned the guitar for about 20 years. He discovered the CE-100-D while shopping for an ES-175, and it was his gigging guitar until he became a good enough luthier to make his own jazz box. The guitar is in very good cosmetic shape. Compared to the 1958 Franz pickups, the 1964 Anti-Hum pickups sound more refined and therefore closer (on the neck pickup) to my ideal of clean jazz tone.
A note on body size: The 1958 Capri body is 3 inches deep, while the 1964 Capri body is 2.75 inches deep. I also have a blonde 1968 Capri, and its body returned to the 3-inch depth.
This model seems to be underappreciated because it falls between big-box jazz guitars and thinline rock guitars. The Capri was indeed part of Guild's archtop lineage, and it was the direct ancestor of the Slim Jim and Starfire. The Capri has a fuller acoustic voice than its thinline descendants, a difference that I can hear through a low-distortion amplifier. I think it's great not just for jazz, but for any cleanish guitar style.
I met up with @mavuser on Thursday and assumed stewardship of his 1958 CE-100D, s/n 7081. It reportedly had just one owner before him, and it came with a batch of vintage case candy in its vintage Lifton case. The guitar is inlay-challenged and has some other signs of age, but it's a solid player. The Franz pickups sound big, and they can get raw. (They're surprisingly great for surf!) I'm loving the iced-tea burst and the translucent knobs.
The 1964 CE-100-D, s/n 36151, in three-color sunburst, came a couple weeks ago from a jazz cat in Oregon who owned the guitar for about 20 years. He discovered the CE-100-D while shopping for an ES-175, and it was his gigging guitar until he became a good enough luthier to make his own jazz box. The guitar is in very good cosmetic shape. Compared to the 1958 Franz pickups, the 1964 Anti-Hum pickups sound more refined and therefore closer (on the neck pickup) to my ideal of clean jazz tone.
A note on body size: The 1958 Capri body is 3 inches deep, while the 1964 Capri body is 2.75 inches deep. I also have a blonde 1968 Capri, and its body returned to the 3-inch depth.
This model seems to be underappreciated because it falls between big-box jazz guitars and thinline rock guitars. The Capri was indeed part of Guild's archtop lineage, and it was the direct ancestor of the Slim Jim and Starfire. The Capri has a fuller acoustic voice than its thinline descendants, a difference that I can hear through a low-distortion amplifier. I think it's great not just for jazz, but for any cleanish guitar style.
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