Wow, I just had to look up what silking is and now that I look at the guitar in the photos, you see all these medullary rays!!! That's cool
So does it affect tone or just strength of the top?
It's actually primarily a cosmetic (grading) thing and is due largely to how the planks are cut from the logs ("quartersawn" being ideal) but there is a school of thought that along with "tight grain" it indicates denser (stronger) wood.
Means you can make a slightly thinner top, resonates better.
That's actually what makes Adirondack spruce desirable, but there's no evidence they used Adi until Tacoma, and it probably wasn't readily available until then anyway.
Over the last couple of years of seeing so many for sale listings, I've just realized that Guild tops in general were just always pretty d--n gorgeous, and at least starting in the '70, thanks largely to the efforts of their buyer Willie Fritscher:
http://www.westerlyguildguitars.com/articles/woodselection.pdf
Also, any idea where Guild sourced their Sitka spruce and mahogany in the 70s? I think I read an article that the Sitka spruce is from the Pacific Northwest. How about the mahogany and rosewood?
Re Sitka, see the note above about Willie.
I think the issue was more about the skill of the buyer/grader as opposed to specific source locations within the range.
Mahogany was most likely what's known as Honduran but is found in a range in Central America, Honduras was just probably the most common source at the time, up through late '90's when they did need to start looking for more sources.
Rosewood in '70's just about guaranteed to be East Indian. Again, it was just the most common source at the time.
Last known "regular production" use of Brazilian was '73 (?; or '74, don't remember for sure right now) on D50's that actually had mixed backs and sides of Braz and EIR.
Full Brazilian backs and sides very rare after '69, suspect they saved it for the top-of-the line models D55 And F50R for the next couple of years 'til they couldn't do it anymore.
Thus the mixed D50's.
Lastly, the label on the inside, the top edge is starting to peel off. What's the best way to re-affix it?
Think were actually put on with hide glue but a little slightly watered-down Elmer's should be be fine