Guild Amps of the 1950s
toneful solution. Consequently, Guild amps
from that point on used a more standard circuit design and tube complement.
today’s dollars. Considering the competition,
a Guild amp at a premium price had little
chance on the market.
The ultra-clean Model 200 Double-Twin
shown on the previous pages dates from
late 1955 and belongs to collector and historian Lynn Wheelwright. It’s on display at
the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad,
California, through 2010. The amp seems to
be all original, which gives us a neat look at
the type of components Guild used in their
Masteramps. The speakers are Jensen P12P
C5 775s, which feature an alnico 5 permanent
magnet and were cutting edge hi-fi technology at the time. Guild, like Gibson, used home
hi-fi as the benchmark for sound and quality,
which explains the use of two Jensen P3VH
C5 628 tweeters. In addition to the standard
controls noted above, the Double-Twin has a
Standby/On/Tweeter rotary knob. Connected
to a ganged pair of potentiometers, this control allows for operation with or without the
tweeters. Also in the tweeter circuit are two
1.0 µf capacitors that serve as a crossover, in
effect allowing high-end signals to be sent
only to the tweeters.
Going into 1958, the US guitar industry felt
the effects of a severe economic downturn.
The Recession of 1958 would prove to be the
worst such event between World War II and
1970. Auto sales fell 31% from their 1957 levels,
and unemployment in Detroit reached 20%.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% and continued
to rise through the end of 1959. Regardless,
American industry forged on with bigger, bolder,
and wilder designs in everything from household
appliances to automobiles and electric guitars.
As such, the dichotomy of 1950s exuberance
and the stark economic conditions of the day
were reflected in the 1959 Guild catalog. The
number of electric guitars being offered nearly
doubled, and new additions were made to the
archtop and flattop acoustic lines. A new amplifier—the new 100-J—was added to the original
three. The 100-J was similar to the 99-J (model
The Double-Twin Goes Stereo
In late 1959, the 200-D Double-Twin became the
200-S. This new variation was a dual-amplifier
stereo model similar in theory to the Gibson
GA- 79. Each amp had a separate control stack
with Volume, Bass, and Treble controls. Channel
1 also featured tremolo. The amps could be
run separately, with signals coming out of each
speaker, or the guitarist could use the stereo
jack that drove signals to both amps. The 200-S
did not appear in the 1959 Guild catalog,
although there are 1959 versions of the 200-S.
These units are covered completely in tweed,
with a tweed-covered vertical bar bisecting the
rectangular speaker opening. In 1960, Guild
revamped its amp line yet again. The catalog
Riding out the 1958 Recession
These first-series Masteramps were made
at Guild’s factory on New York’s Lower East
Side. Rumors persist that Multivox, which was
located nearby, made Guild amps, but this
is most likely untrue. Hans Moust, author of
the excellent Guild Guitar Book (Hal Leonard,
1999), states that former Guild employees
remembered amplifiers being built at both
the original New York City factory as well as
at the subsequent facility in Hoboken, New
Jersey, using components supplied in part by
Ampeg. This does not completely eliminate
Multivox from the picture, however. If Guild
used Ampeg components in New Jersey, it
is entirely possible that they used Multivox
components while based in Manhattan.
Guild shot for the moon with its top-of-the-line amp, the Double-Twin. It was
stocked with two 12” Jensen P12P
Concert-series drivers and two switchable Jensen 4” tweeters.
From 1955 to 1958, Guild’s guitar and amp
lines remained almost identical from year to
year. The 1958 Guild catalog shows the same
line of amplifiers as the previous three years,
all still with the same covering and the small
Masteramp logo just under the company logo.
Masteramps hadn’t set the industry on fire (no
50L6 pun intended), but they remained a valuable part of the Guild business. As mentioned
previously, the one-two sale of an electric
guitar and amplifier was new for the ’50s and
something that dealers demanded.
names began incorporating “J” over the intervening years), with the exception of having
an extra tube, five additional watts, and a 15"
Jensen speaker. The Masteramp brand was
gone, and all amps were simply referred to by
the Guild brand name. The catalog describes
the look as a “Light Brown ‘tweed’ with a Dark
Brown fabric covering on a ¾" hard plywood
lock joint cabinet.” Grille cloth was a white swirl
pattern on dark cloth, similar to Ampeg amps
of the time. The speaker opening was trapezoidal, a design theme that would appear again in
future Guild amps. By and large, the guts of the
amps were the same as they had been since
50L6 circuits had been abandoned.
describes “scuff-proof Blue-Grey vinyl,” but the
200-S cabinet was the same as 1959 versions
except for the new covering. Interestingly, the
200-S carried a list price of $350—$45 less than
the previous year’s model. This may have reflected an improvement in economic conditions or,
more likely, may have signaled an attempt to
attract more dealers and buyers with a more
affordable offering.
The real shocker in the ’ 59 catalog was the
price. The ’ 58 recession had clearly made its
impression on the Guild business. The 66-J,
the smallest amp of the Guild line—which
had held steady at $145—was listed at an
eyebrow-raising $210. That’s an increase of
more than 40%! The other amps in the Guild
line also jumped in price, with the 200-D
Double-Twin (note the name morphing) top-
ping out at $395—that’s a $3000 amp in
Throughout the 1960s, Guild would strug-
gle with low amp sales. As the company
attempted to capitalize on the massive boom
in demand for electric guitars and amps, it
moved further and further from its roots in
acoustic guitar making and invested more in
the largely unrelated market of low-priced
electric instruments. Ultimately, the company
would be sold to a much larger—and equally
unrelated—corporate parent, which would
eventually culminate in the complete dissolu-
tion of Guild’s electric lines.
For more information on Guild and its amplifiers, read Guild Guitars by Hans Moust and
Guitar Stories Vol. 2 by Michael Wright.
