1954 Guild F-30 000-Size Guitar

Now that's an attractive guitar, isn't it? It's beat and lovely.

The owner has had it for a while and he thought it was a '66 for the longest time. One look at the label and features and I had to run-down the number. It's a '54. I don't see many Guild flattops this old walk in the shop and this one clearly has an interesting backstory that none of us will truly know.

It was definitely gigged a lot -- it had enough wear for that even after the homebrew refinish job on it that must've been done in the '60s. There's a jack hole on the side for what probably hooked-up to a soundhole-style magnetic pickup at some point.

The bridge, pins, and saddle are, of course, replacements and someone went to the trouble to replace all of the original binding (and heel cap) with flamed-maple that's now aged-in nicely. That's work!

Another interesting note is that this guy has a 25 1/2" scale length. Later F-30s used a Gibson-style short scale through the '60s and then went to long-scale again in the '70s. On this guitar, with its light x-bracing, that gives it a piano-like, OM-style sound -- especially because the sound is bouncing off of maple back and sides.

Anyhow, I figured I needed to share this and the owner (thankfully) let me snag some pics before he went off on his next adventure. It's a sweetie.