Fender announces new Custom Shop Guild Starfire VI GSR (Guild Special Run), list $4999.

Guild Electric

and to think i bought a guild starfire 12 string brandy new in 1972 for 550 dollars ,,,,,, but bread was a nickle too lol

Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time getting excited about any guitar with PAFs.

I agree. Everything has PAFs it seems these days. I remember Guild made some Starfire's a while back with P90's in very limited numbers.

Yep.

I don't get why Fender wouldn't just reissue the P90 versions of the X175 and CE100D . . . at reasonable 2k-ish price point, I might add. I doubt a single one of us wouldn't buy one.

nope,not excited either,but that is the most historical sold so.. can't blame them for...

BUT! they should have a "special" option.....

Wow. It doesn't even look like a Starfire. The body shape, the bridge/stop tailpiece, as well as the pickups, are ES-335 all the way.

Now, this is a Starfire I could get excited about:

Ah, right you are, Mel!

I'd sooner save a whole bunch of cash and buy this:

www.frailers.com/scripts/pr...

Those pickups

If I were in a hunt for a Guild, and had the cash, I'd just as Walter to act as my personal online shopper and go with his rec on a vintage. I'd even pay him a finder's fee and come out plenty ahead!

Wow they aren't giving them away, totally agree with you strummerson you could get a vintage one and pay someone to find it cheaper then they are selling this new one.

That price is a joke, right?

Fender gets an E for effort in (sort of) resurrecting the Guild brand,but that $5000 price point is a total FAIL.The $550 Anne paid in 1972 for a Starfire 12 is $2830 in today's money,and that's about where this RI should street-price at the very most. Can't do it for that in the US? Figure out how,or lose the business to China.Or Viet Nam.

At least give it a Guild Bigsby or a Harp tail piece, and while you're at it Guild humbuckers too.

for $5000 you can buy about 2 or 3 REAL starfires that will appreciate in value.

Johnny,they're real all right.And they're spectacular.Maybe TOO spectacular.

The "GSR" in the model name implies that they are making no more than 20 of these instruments.

Actual selling price will obviously be somewhat less than that MSRP (maybe 30 percent less, or roughly $3,500).

Given the limited number of units produced, plus the fact that they are made in the USA with pricey US labor, the cost probably isn't that far out of line . . . at least for collectors.

I think this instrument is Guild's way of gauging whether there is sufficient interest in new Guild electric guitars. The guys running their New Hartford, CT factory want to build new electric guitars, but they know that they will be competing against their used instruments for sales.

Personally, I'm glad they're keeping some crafts-people employed in the USA, instead of outsourcing everything to Asia.

If the real price is $3500, I'd save $1400 by getting this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/196...

And there are other companies that manufacture instruments in the USA for significantly less.

And you'd be buying a 46 year-old guitar with no warranty, & likely to eventually need re-fretting, neck reset, etc.

Some folks prefer to have a warranty, & are willing to pay extra for a little exclusivity. And Guild's GSR offering wasn't intended to be an inexpensive guitar.

I have to admit that I prefer the looks of the one you posted, Strummerson.

Fair point about the warranty. But that's part and parcel of new versus used/vintage instruments. I completely understand why warranty would be a high priority for some.

But even a neck re-set and re-fret doesn't run $1400.

And Walter Broes regularly posts about the significant differences between the '60s Guilds and the '90s Guilds. If a '60s Guild would get me anywhere closer to Walter's tone, I'd go that route over a '90s or one of these reissues.

And that brings us back to Guild's dilemma that I mentioned above.

They know that any new electric guitars they produce will be competing against lots of used Guild electrics built long ago, that currently sell for relatively short money.

Just a guess, but perhaps that's why they tried making this first offering different from the older Starfires.

Whoa, thanks for all the kind words Strummer. As far as I'm concerned btw, this new "Starfire" is not very exciting, and that's being nice. Looks like they're trying for the "boutique/Collings version of a 335 - market", but it' doesn't even look like a Starfire to me.

Geoguy, you're confusing Guilds with Gretsches...old Guilds very rarely need a neck reset... (ducks!)

Yeah. Good point. They probably could do a line of US build Starfires for $2200-$2500 street. Rickenbacker does it. But if the vintage instruments go for $2000, it might not work as a business model. The other issue is that Guilds are an even smaller niche market than Ricks or GreTscHes.

I'll let you know when mine gets in what the differences are between my SD equipped SF4 and the GSR's Seth Lovers. Personally, I could never bond with Filtertrons, so the buckers are a win for me. The body shape is not the traditional SF, but I'll see how far out it is from the older one when I get it. Yeah, it's pricey and maybe it's a little too close in shape to a Gibson, but you only turn 50 once, what the smurf, why not pick up what you really want for a change?

Besides, it's one of 18 in existence - how much more exclusive do you want to get?