Opinion of Tacoma Built Guilds

docfishr

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I have 3 Tacoma made Guilds Each is a joy to play. The F-30 Aragon being my favorite, hard to believe all that rich beautiful sound is coming from that little ax.
 

jeffcoop

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I love all USA-built Guilds. But my favorites are those made in Tacoma.

Bill
I was waiting for you to chime in!

Every time I think I should sell my F40 to fund another purchase, I play it and change my mind.
 

jbkatia

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I had 4 Tacoma built dreadnoughts: 2005 D-55, just a cannon of a sound. 2006 D-50, Bluegrass Special a fine well balanced rosewood, 2005 D-40 Bluegrass Jubilee a wonderful all around mahogany mid and well balanced sound and finally a 2006 D-40 Ritchie Havens double pick-guard mahogany very faithful to it's predecessor. All wonderful made and most importantly sounding guitars!
 

Sefton419

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I have a late 2005 Tacoma Guild D55. I played gigs with it for several years, took it on airplanes, drove it across California, and just picked it up after several years of not playing guitar for far too long. This guitar was my heart and soul. I hardly even knew what Guild was when I sat down and played it for the first time. It connected with me.

It did have a lacquer issue early on. Fender agreed to redo the lacquer job under warranty. I thought they sent it to Corona, CA. Instead, I confirmed later that they sent it to the New Hartford plant, where they changed the pick guard and re-shaped the bridge to look more like a Guild bridge. So basically, I have a Tacoma and New Hartford hybrid. It’ll most definitely be passed down to my children.
 
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Interesting thread to resurrect. My notion of what a Guild should sound like is rooted in the 1960s, mostly-Hoboken instruments--I still play my '65 D-40. But I never warmed to the post-1970 products. But when I encountered the "Tacoma" instruments, they immediately struck my ear as sounding like older Guilds. I made a point of sampling every one I could at stores, and to my ear they all had the characteristic sound that I used to be able to pick out of a song circle even before seeing any headstocks. Somewhere I have a recording I made in a store, of a maple F-47 that I would have happily bought had I not been a half-continent away from home (and already the owner of more Guilds than I could play).
 

Pike

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Tacoma’s Native American series that they did for Washburn are great guitars, even though they are only solid top. Also, some of Tacoma’s spruce/mahogany dreadnoughts are very good as well...
 

dreadnut

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One of the sweetest Guilds I've ever played was a Tacoma built D50. It fairly lit up Elderly's acoustic room when I played it.
 

Tom O

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I played a Tacoma D-55 that got away. My GAD-50PCE sounded close enough to prevent spending the $$. I rescued a contemporary MIRC CV1C from California. My Texas luthier fixed it up and it sounds great at a third the cost of the D-55. Sounds as good as my DD-6MCE,
 

Rayk

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If you found CD series for sale ands a hog Adirondack top go for it if sound as good as the OM then it‘ll be winner !

if it needs work and sounds good . Fix it’ll be worth it if you ask me .
 
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I recently purchased a Guild f-40 Valencia with the MIRC serial number for $800. The fit and finish are excellent. Cosmetically it is just about perfect. But i dont feel the same way about its tone as I do a Westerly. I'm planning to sell it, I hope I can recoup.
 

richardp69

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That's a pretty fair price. I've had some pretty good sounding MIRC instruments but we all hear things differently. The Westerly F 40 is a really good model. I have two of them and will be selling one when the weather gets a bit warmer.

Good luck in your search. I take it you're pretty convinced you won't get the tone you're looking for with a fresh set up and fresh set of strings, right???
 

redta

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Got a 2007 Tacoma F512. I and my fellow pickers really love the sound. Get lots of compliments from the audience.
 

docfishr

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Well chazmo says
"The only bugaboo is you have to watch out for the guitars (mostly Contemporary Series) that got dumped into the reclamation market at the end of 2008 when Tacoma was getting shuttered. Some of those guitars should have been bandsawed, but weren't."
He is entitled to his opinion.
I have owned Guild guitars since 1966 and from every factory. My two favorites are both from that contemporary series, a CO-1c and a CO-2c. Both went the the FERC process (whatever) and had easily repairable issues when I got them. There are QUALITY instruments and well worth fixing.
That's my opinion.
If any of y'all have one gathering dust and wish to sell it reasonably, send me a message.
 

Wellington

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I have a late 2005 Tacoma Guild D55. I played gigs with it for several years, took it on airplanes, drove it across California, and just picked it up after several years of not playing guitar for far too long. This guitar was my heart and soul. I hardly even knew what Guild was when I sat down and played it for the first time. It connected with me.

It did have a lacquer issue early on. Fender agreed to redo the lacquer job under warranty. I thought they sent it to Corona, CA. Instead, I confirmed later that they sent it to the New Hartford plant, where they changed the pick guard and re-shaped the bridge to look more like a Guild bridge. So basically, I have a Tacoma and New Hartford hybrid. It’ll most definitely be passed down to my children.
How was the pickguard and bridge different from the Tacoma era?
 
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