From what I know 1969 was the cut off for using or importing rosewood.
That was
Martin's cut-off date.
Brazil just started getting very heavy-handed about letting it out of the country.
I've actually seen a 1967 date for that but surprisingly haven't been able to confirm it from a reputable source, but there weren't any import
restrictions on it yet.
CITES was still out on the horizon.
Not that guitar makers didn't have stores of it. But suddenly since it was a very limited commodity, There were only pieces used for certain parts. Rarely would a 1973 Guild be Brazillianrosewood. It might (in an off case) have rosewood sides, or bridge or fretboard but some guitars were mixed. But rarely by 1973.
Right, and I can only remember seeing
confirmed by Hans "mixed B/S" on D50's although it would make sense they used Brazilian on D55's even into '73, if they had big enough slabs to make backs and sides.****
But those were still special order in '73 and I can't recall seeing one from say '70 to '73 that was
confirmed Brazilian, but that's probably due more to poor memory and very few sightings here in the first place.
And can't recall the question ever coming up about F50's or a report of mixed B/S on those, let alone a
confirmed one.
And I agree with Curlington that it looks like other known EIR examples from the era in grain and color.
It's probably in one of the links one of the other guys posted, but I always remembered a source that explained that EIR has a MUCH lower pore count than Braz, when looking at a piece end-on to the grain.
So if that's true DNA testing isn't necessary, but it might still be difficult to asses that on an already built instrument.
And I've heard the bubblegum smell ONLY occurs in Braz.
Interestingly Guild still had stocks sized suitably for fretboards and especially bridges well into the '80's so your
fretboard and bridge have a very high likelihood of being Braz if they're not ebony.
And those might yield grain comparison clues.
:friendly_wink:
PS KUDOS for deciding to assume it's EIR until you can figure out how to tell for sure.
**** It just occurred to that maybe the reason they had leftover Braz to use to make mixed D50's was because they used up the last of the big enough slabs (that they were willing to use) to make all-Braz D55's?
Sheer conjecture.