Guild ... Mandolin?

F30 · Feb 11, 2014

Did Guild ever make a mandolin? I see Guild Mandolin strings from time to time like this:
http://www.juststrings.com/gld-r-11...edium=ShoppingCom&utm_campaign=JuststringsCSE
but I've never seen a Guild Mandolin....

GardMan · Feb 11, 2014

They made a prototype made in Westerly... there's a pic in Hans' book. Never marketed, but there are a "few" (one? two?) out there.

Also, I believe there were "Madeira" mandolins imported by Guild.

The Guilds of Grot · Feb 11, 2014

Here's the pix of one I let get away!

dapmdave · Feb 11, 2014

Amazing. Kurt, you rock.

SFIV1967 · Feb 11, 2014

All the available Guild strings can be seen at the webpage: http://www.guildguitars.com/accessories/strings/

Dave already mentioned Hans book, and Hans wrote before: "...a few prototypes were built and there's a picture of one of those in The Guild Guitar Book on page 166."

As Dave also mentioned, Guild marketed several Mandolins under the Madeira name, the M-5 Teardrop, M-10 Double Cutaway, M-300, M-800,...

As examples that's a M-10:

And a M-300:

Ralf

walrus · Feb 11, 2014

A baby ST-302!

walrus

GalenB · Feb 11, 2014

Were they any good? Solid wood? The Madeira....

Update: Interesting....I jumped over onto a mando website and did some checking. Seems maybe the Madeira and the Aria mandos of the same era appear the same...might have been produced in the same factory.

I love the pic of the Guild headstock. You'd have to be 40 rows back to not know what brand that is.

SFIV1967 · Feb 12, 2014

GalenB said:
Were they any good? Solid wood? The Madeira...

I think the Madeira mandos used solid wood for the top but laminated wood for back and sides (would have been too expensive using solid carved wood there). See also below Aria spec.

GalenB said:
Seems maybe the Madeira and the Aria mandos of the same era appear the same...might have been produced in the same factory.

Yes, "same same but different" as the Asians say...
In that case just different headstock shape (but same inlay!) and different name on the mandos but same Japanese origin as it looks.

Nagoya, Aria, Madeira (by Guild):

Ralf

F30 · Feb 12, 2014

Thanks for the posts and pics. Very nice

Guild ... Mandolin?

F30

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GardMan

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The Guilds of Grot

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dapmdave

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SFIV1967

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walrus

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GalenB

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SFIV1967

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F30

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