1966 Guild Starfire III Hollowbody Electric Guitar



Overview: Starfires are comfy guitars with a sound all their own. These narrower humbucker pickups are bright and chimey but with just the right amount of kick to separate them from "true" minibuckers or Gretsch-style pickups. The handling is fast and the necks on these are more reminiscent of early-'60s Gibsons than they are of the Guilds produced from 1970-onwards that more folks are familiar with. They gave a decently-tight radius to the board and a C-shaped, quick-feeling rear profile. This one has been owned by the same fella for a long time and it's been kept safe and tidy compared to most of these!


Repairs included: Max gave this a level/dress of the frets and some setup work. I wound-up modding the aluminum saddle to give it some more height adjustment and tuning stability. It's playing spot-on and ready to go! 

  • Weight: 6 lbs 8 oz
  • Scale length: 24 3/4"
  • Nut width: 1 11/16"
  • Neck shape: medium C
  • Board radius: 10"
  • Depth at first fret: 29/32"
  • Depth at seventh fret: 29/32"
  • Body width: 16 1/8"
  • Body depth: 1 3/4"
  • Body wood: ply mahogany
  • Bridge: original Bigsby/compensated for wound G
  • Fretboard: rosewood
  • Neck wood: mahogany
  • Pickups: 2x humbucker
  • Action height at 12th fret: 1/16” overall (fast, spot-on)
  • String gauges: 50w-11 with wound G
  • Truss rod: adjustable
  • Neck relief: straight
  • Fret style: medium/low

Condition notes: It's all-original as far as I can tell. The saddle is modified a little bit and the back-angle coming from the Bigsby tail over the bridge isn't very steep, but that's usual on these old guys with the non-tension-bar Bigsby units. There's weather-check to the finish and mild wear and tear throughout the body. The celluloid binding has shrunken a bit in the cutaway of the body and there's a gap between it and the body that's not obvious at first. I can remove the binding and reglue it with a small gap at the ends of the binding if that suits -- let me know! The frets at the extension are lower than the rest of them (due to the leveling process removing a bit of "ski jump" in that area).


It comes with: It has an old hard case -- non-original, but in good order.


Consignor tag: JWAR



























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