62Slimjim
Junior Member
1978 Guild X-175 Manhattan HH
This ’78 Guild X-175 sounds beautiful with the quintessential dry and woody archtop sound. Well-loved with gentle finish wear on the gorgeous 5-piece Maple neck from play with some pick wear on the top and other general wear from use. As with most guitars, the best ones get played - and someone...
emeraldcityguitars.com
So I played this guitar a couple of days ago, went backwards and forwards between it and the D'Aquisto Jazz Line they also have—the Guild just had so much more character and almost immaculate action.
https://emeraldcityguitars.com/products/1978-guild-x-175-manhattan-hh
I'm very tempted, but … no pick guard, so there are holes all around.
I think the knobs are the no-logo De Armonds that they used sometimes around this period, not as cool as the Guild logo ones IMO.
I began to suspect it might need a little fret attention around the 11/12th frets—no problem playing single note runs, but when I did ascending glissandi it felt like my finger would slightly catch. Might need a slight crowning, maybe?
Body binding is pretty good, but neck binding both sides is cracked on almost every fret.
HB1's were wonderful through a Super Reverb … Master pot was a bit crackly, but they fixed it.
Body is quite pitted, doesn't affect the tone but does look a bit funky (zoom the photos to see).
They offered to trade for both my '62 T100D AND my '76 Cherry red Ibanez Custom Agent (rare finish)! Another store said they would list the T100D alone for $36-3800 after $700 worth of servicing, so …
They have it up on reverb with "Make an offer"— I was thinking maybe $1795 + tax, which would come out around $2k. Any comments? Fair price? Lower yet?
I am also drawn to either an X500 or 700, but none in my area to try
