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#46
01-18-2017, 11:13 AM
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Yes, in my opinion Larrivee has become the number 3 largest builder of high end acoustic guitars. Most of their acoustics and all of their highest end ones are made in the US now. Gibson has fallen off over the past few decades in terms of the quality and quantity of their acoustics and in my experience, as well as many others, their quality is a bit uneven now. Guild used to be one of the big three, but this company has gone through many changes of owners and many factories where there are built. The Guilds made in their Hoboken, New Jersey factory are perhaps their best but those were in production only until 1966 when the person who founded Guild sold the company to another company called Avnet and moved their production to a factory in Westerly, Rhode Island. They built Guild guitars there in Rhode Island from 1966 until the company was sold in 1995 to Fender Musical Instruments who moved the production to California, then to Tacoma, Washington, and then to Connecticut. They also began contracting out to a company in China to build many of their guitars as well - those are sold as Guild-GAD acoustic guitars. Of all of the production under the Fender ownership, the acoustics that are most commonly seen as high quality are the ones made in Tacoma, Washington, while the others are not considered to be in the same class as the old Hoboken and Westerly built Guilds. In 2014 Fender sold the Guild name to the Cordoba Guitar company in California. They began contracting to a company in China to manufacture guitars that they sold under a label of Guild Westerly Collection which is a complete mis-naming as these are manufactured in China by a company that is not Guild. However, there is much hope and expectation that the good name of Guild Guitars will be re-established in the coming years since Cordoba has just begun to make some US-made Guilds that their Santa Monica, California workshop and have announced their intention to regain the former reputation for high quality acoustic guitars. They have a long way to go to catch up with Martin, Taylor, and Larrivee though.
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Member #12 Acoustics: 1995 Taylor 510 1997 Taylor Custom Shop 14 size 1998 Taylor K-65 12 string 1998 Larrivee C-10E with Mucha Lady IR/Sitka Electrics: 1999 PRS Custom 22 Artist Package - Whale Blue/Ebony 1995 Fender Custom Shop 1960 Strat - Dakota/Maple 1997 Fender California Series Fat Strat - CAR/Maple 1968 Teisco e-110 Sunburst/Maple 
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#48
02-01-2017, 01:58 PM
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Hi Jim, thanks for your post, very interesting again...
Well I had heard that Guild guitars had been owned by Fender Musical Instruments for a while, and had been sold to Cordoba afterwards, but I didn't know all the other things you mentioned...What you say about the Guild Westerly Collection surprises me : I find it disappointing from their behalf... This being said, I have tried a few Guilds quite recently, and some were good and cheep - 2 out of 3 all made in China -). Still not really great guitars (I haven't tried any american made or Westerly Collection so far), but really worth the money...I'll be careful if I see second-hand D-55 or D-50 at a good price (I've seen 2 or 3 on the net recently...). Thanks for all these details. Very interesting and valuable. I never know what to think of Gibson acoustic guitars : I've heard a very good second-hand J-45 in a shop last month, played by the guy who bought it ... Others seem quite common, not sounding like anything exceptional : but I bet it's a bit the same with all the big names these days...One has to choose, when possible. The guy in the shop I went to when I first got into buying a Martin, wanted to order a Larrivée for me, saying that Martin were quite uneven too at the time (!?), and Larrivée more reliable. I bet that with a good job, and the money that would go along with it, Paris may be a good town. But I never found any worthwhile thing to do there, so I didn't like it for long...Came across lots of over-ambitious unfair and greedy people when I was there...Very expensive rents too - if you can get a place where to live ("Now my room has got two windows/But the sunshine never comes through.../blabla-tralala"...).  I had quite a hard time there, but it's nice that you enjoyed it...I figure out that compared to the U.S., Paris must feel a bit like going to the country-side, and somehow quieter...Still too hectic for me. 
Last edited by Bernieman; 02-02-2017 at 01:15 AM.
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#49
04-07-2018, 03:18 PM
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It took me time, but i've bought a Guild F-30 recently. I've been very lucky to find a new one, at a very very good price, and I'm very happy with it...It's been made in New Hartford (Connecticut) and I'm glad to have come across such good buy: it had been in the shop for a long time I think, but it is definitely an excellent one...I can compare with a pre-fender one I have played, and though some features do not seem to match that older one, most are very convincing, and others seem to fit me even more... I like the shape very much too, pretty much like a Martin OM-18 but with a deeper body, a 44,5 mm width at nut and red spruce bracing (sitka topped)... The one I got seems quite better than a D-50 they have too, but the overall quality is good. I have not played my other steel-stings much since I've got this one...It's a good thing about where i'm staying, people often are a bit thick or unaware of what good quality acoustic makes are, and these kind of things sometimes happen. The F-30 is not currently made, and Guild has never been that famous in France, aside from some (often jazz) professional musicians (I was alone at the Taylor road show in the town I now live in ). No Larrivée came my way, new Taylors are expensive though I have fancied the 700 series with Lutz spruce tops and ES2, and Martin OMs cost too much not to think about it for some time...Then came the old new Guilds ! Last edited by Bernieman; 04-07-2018 at 04:04 PM. Reason: Forgot something/ Need to relate post to the overall thread a bot more...
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