1966 Guild X-175

SOLD!

Beautiful vintage 1966 Guild X-175 archtop hollow body electric guitar is in exceptional condition for its age. Made in Hoboken, NJ and is 100% original including the frets. Not a reissue.

Nice sunburst lacquer finish Two Guild anti-hum pickups (humbuckers) with separate volume and tone controls, 3-way pickup selector switch. Spruce top, maple back and sides. Three piece mahogany neck with Brazilian rosewood fingerboard and engraved Kolb tuners (available on early and the high-end Guild archtops). Features a 17-inch body size at lower bout and is 3-inches wide all hollow body. Scale length is 24 3/4-inch with nut width measured at 1 85/128-inch (just shy of 1 11/16) with my digital caliper. Compensated rosewood bridge and beveled art deco stairstep pickguard. Original hard shell case.

Nut Width: 42.36 mm
Body Depth: 3-inch
Body Width Upper Bout: 12 1/2-inch
Body Width Lower Bout: 17-inch

1966 Guild X-175

The engraved German-made Kolb tuners work flawlessly and look great.

The X-175 is one of Guild’s most venerable designs, a full-body two pickup electric archtop at home both as a straight jazz guitar and in more vintage rock’n’roll styles. The X-175 is a fairly deluxe guitar, in the middle of Guild’s original 1950’s line but both larger and fancier than Gibson’s otherwise similar ES-175. The 17″ body is triple bound and features a laminated spruce top, much like it’s Epiphone ancestors. Two Guild humbucking pickups with individual tone and volume controls.

The rosewood fingerboard is bound with pearloid block inlays, while the headstock carries an inlaid Guild logo and vertical column. The tuners are the fancy covered Kolb units with pearloid buttons seen only on more expensive Guilds. This is a fairly rare Guild instrument, an older style full-body guitar far less popular in the 1960’s than the company’s thinlines. Less than 250 were built from 1965-69, and few will have survived in as fine condition as this one. Very clean and 100% original. Some very light play wear.

Many have said this was Guild’s answer to Gibson’s ES-175. But with its larger 17″ body and contoured Venetian cutaway, the X-175 is probably better compared to Gibson’s upscale ES-350. Likely the Guild CE100 was Guild’s answer to the Gibson ES-175. Introduced in 1954, the X-175 model was first offered with single-coil Franz (similar to Gibson P-90) dog-ear style pickups made in Astoria Queens, NY. Guild’s anti-hum (humbucker) pickups were seen by 1963, manufactured by Guild until 1985 in Elizabeth, New Jersey (same place the Guild amps were built). The Guild X-175 is similar to the X500/X-700 archtops with the latter offering some more ornate features.

Guild History
Alfred Dronge registers Guild Guitar Company after partnering with George Mann, ex-Vice President of Epiphone Company in 1952.

In 1951, a four-month-long strike forced a relocation of Epiphone from New York City to Philadelphia. Much of the initial workforce at Guild were former Epiphone workers who lost their jobs following the strike and the subsequent relocation of the company. Many were highly skilled Italian immigrants that lived in “Little Itay” in Manhattan, New York City. In 1957 Epiphone was acquired by CMI who also owned Gibson.

The name Guild was used by suggestion of Gene Detgen how had worked as a Sales Rep for Epiphone and Pacific Music Supply who used to distribute Sonola Accordians (Alfred Dronge’s company). Gene Gene had been a partner in a small company that manufactured guitar amplifiers in San Diego named “Guild” that was closing down. They decided to keep the name. The Guild word goes back to the middle ages and refers to “old world” associations. They felt the name stood for craftsmanship and quality.

The first Guild Guitars are produced at 536 Pearl Street in New York City in 1953. Soon after George Mann had left the company.

Due to Al Dronge’s passion for jazz music, Guild concentrates solely on the production of full-depth hollow body electric guitars for their first year. Not only did Guild need more space to expand, they were being pressured the same way Epiphone had been by the unions. So in 1956, production moves out of New York City to Hoboken, NJ. It was during this time period that Guild hires most of the people who are responsible for the tremendous growth of the company during the 1960s, such as Bob Bromberg (general/plant manager), Gilbert Diaz (former Gretsch employee) for final assembly, and Carlo Greco (luthier).

In 1966, Guild was sold to the Avnet Corporation, and production moved from Hoboken to Westerly, RI. In 1995, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation purchases the Guild brand. After Fender purchased Guild, reissues of some Guild electric guitars were manufactured in Korea under the DeArmond brand name, which Fender also owned the rights to.

In late 2001, Fender decided to shut down the Westerly, RI factory and moved all Guild production to its factory in Corona, California. In 2008, Fender again moved Guild when it acquired Kaman Music Corporation and its small production facility in New Hartford, Connecticut. In 2014, Fender’s New Hartford Guild facility closed as FMIC sold off the Guild brand to Cordoba Music Group (CMG) who set up a new manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California, led by Gibson alum Ren Ferguson as the VP of Manufacturing and R&D. Westerly Collection (acoustics) and Newark Street (electrics) were soon released by the new owners which aimed to pay homage Guild’s production history that took place at those locations (with the Newark Street address alluding to a link with the Hoboken factory).

The vintage Guild archtops should not be overlooked, these are quality guitars. This one is no exception. Below are some pictures with some Gibson and Gretsch hollow bodies in my collection. The Guild X-175 has a 17-inch wide lower bout as compared to the 16-inch for the Gibsons and Gretsch guitars shown. The body depth of the Guild X-175 is 3-inches, slightly more shallow than the Gibsons by a small amount.