'78 Guild D-25 label

Today I was at Guitar Center and they had a 1978 D-25, finish peeling, needed a neck reset soon, but played fine and sounded great. I looked at the label expecting to see where it was built and the label was oval like my D-55, but didn't have the factory it was built in along the bottom as mine does. I thought it was odd, but owning one Guild doesn't exactly make me an expert, lol. Was this common or do you think the label was just replaced? It did have the serial number on it. I may go back and take a picture of it (the label), I should have today.

For years, there was no city in the label. I bet it is a Guild. pic would help...

HI TB:
I do seem to recall that some of the labels only said "Guild Guitars USA", and I know some of the earliest Westerlys actually still used "Hoboken" labels, even as late as '70.
I think the "USA" label followed that before they finally said "Westerly Rhode Island".
Possibly that '25 is actually a little earlier than '78, assuming your D55 is correctly dated. Might have been the cross-over year too, just can't recall.
Bottom line is label's probably original.

Westerly Wood said:

For years, there was no city in the label. I bet it is a Guild. pic would help...

Click to expand...

If I can get there tomorrow evening I'll take some pictures.

adorshki said:

HI TB:
I do seem to recall that some of the labels only said "Guild Guitars USA", and I know some of the earliest Westerlys actually still used "Hoboken" labels, even as late as '70.
I think the "USA" label followed that before they finally said "Westerly Rhode Island".
Possibly that '25 is actually a little earlier than '78, assuming your D55 is correctly dated. Might have been the cross-over year too, just can't recall.
Bottom line is label's probably original.

Click to expand...

I'll get the serial number and check it the build year. It had a nice vibe to it.

The best source of info on Guild labels up to 1977 is Hans Moust's The Guild Guitar Book. Altho' the book ends with '77, Hans himself is a member here, and is very gracious in answering questions.

There is some limited info and pics of some of the label variants on Reverb... The following info is summarized from Hans' book, with pics I found on line.

From ~'69 to sometime in '72, the oval label had the Guild G-shield at the top, two lines of guarantee text, the model and SN, and Guild Guitars, INC, no factory location at all (this is the label my '72 D-35 has, but I don't have a pic).

From sometime in '72 to '75, Guild use a label with Guild in small script at the top, and made in USA as the last line of text, but no factory location:



According to Hans, the Westerly,R.I. first appeared on the label by ~1975. This label would have Guild in large script across the top, like this:


Westerly is in the arc of text along the bottom.

A different style of Guild script label with the Westerly location appeared sometime later (after '77, because it's not in Hans' book, but before my '94 DV-72s were made):



The possibilities I see are:
(1) The D-25 is actually from an earlier year, before Westerly was included on the label; or...

(2) The factory used an old label on a post-75 D-25 (Guild is notorious for using whatever they had on hand); or...

(3) The label has been replaced with an older style label.

The SN could confirm/exclude possibility #1. A pic of the label might help with #2 or #3... Hans is sometimes able to tell you the name of the factory worker who wrote in the model and SN.

GardMan said:

From ~'69 to sometime in '72, the oval label had the Guild G-shield at the top, two lines of guarantee text, the model and SN, and Guild Guitars, INC, no factory location at all.

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In my book I wrote: The third version was introduced around 1969-1970. It is again similar to the previous labels, but it has "Guild Guitars. Inc." at the bottom.

That should read The third version was introduced during 1970. It is again similar to the previous labels, but it has "Guild Guitars. Inc." at the bottom.

The instruments from 1969 that I reported at the time had documented 1969 serial numbers, but they had not been completed during that year. When they were finally completed towards the end of 1970, they did get the appropriate label for that period, hence the confusion.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

My '73 F-30R has the label without a city name.

My '76 G-37 has a Westerly label.

Guitar Center quite often identifies instruments incorrectly,
so the D-25 in question might well be older than listed.