One of these sold on ebay for $3,200 recently. When they buy using the "buy it now" option - it was too good of a deal! This was written several years ago: The most exotic of my Solidbodies.
I
was stationed in San Diego for my Advanced Electronics training where I
liked to wander through downtown and check out the Music stores, and
there it was.
I thought it was a homemade body put on a Guild neck, but I never saw a
headstock like that either!
This is the solidbody equivalent of the Artist Award. Large Blocks of mother of pearl, the inlays on the headstock, the 'set-in' neck and the built in guitar stand make this guitar a modernistic work of art. This is the top of the Jetstar line, sometimes also called the Polara, but that name is also shared by the SG looking electrics. There is a lot of mahogany in this body, hauling the guitar for more than a couple hundred yards is a real chore. This guitar came with 3 types of pickups, described as single coil like P90s, small humbuckers and large humbuckers; mine are the small ones. I may add more info from the HANS MOUST GUILD book in the future. It came with the original Hard-Shell Case, good thing, because it would have been tough fitting this guitar in another case! The grey tolex and black vinyl is in pretty good shape, the hardware has a little rust, but the inside grey velvet is perfect. It was a player’s guitar; the paint on the neck was worn down, a couple of buckle scars on the back, and a scar inside the upper cutout. Some of the plastic veneer on the headstock was peeled up a little and the slide switches were dirty and noisy. I went overboard with the 'mother-of-toiletseat' on the headstock. They had a set of Grover Pearloid tuners at the music store, and I was able to cough up the $80 to have them installed, and the black plastic 'professionally' glued down. I was a little more than disappointed, they were sloppy with the glue and it separated again shortly after, and they mounted the tuners at weird angles. Oh well, after I used some super glue on the plastic, it still looks pretty cool. I replaced the slide switches with mini toggles, they were noisy and hard to find, get a hold of and switch while playing. Fortunately I didn't have to make any modifications to make this change, and I have all the original parts too. I didn't mess with this guitar much; I set the intonation as best as I could, but there isn't a lot of adjustment on this type of bridge. Unfortunately, this guitar needs a professional's attention. A few years ago I pulled it out if the case, and tuned up - it didn't want to stay in tune. I finally figured out that the headstock piece had separated from the neck at the joint. I don't know if it was because it fell from a music stand a week or two before, or if it was from normal stress. I've seen a lot of Guilds, archtops as well as electrics being sold with this repair. I just want to make sure I find someone to do a real good job. |