Bone saddle
Solid Sitka spruce top and solid Indian rosewood back and sides
GUILD
D- 50 STANDARD
BY CHARLES SAUFLEY
Guild is unquestionably one of the great American guitar builders. But
without the benefit of Martin and Gibson’s
histories, Guild—which will turn 60 next
year—has sometimes played the role of renegade as well as institution. Guild’s superb,
beautifully built, and relatively affordable
acoustics have been the choice of legends
like Nick Drake and Paul Simon. And
Guild electrics—like the Starfire 6-string
and bass, and the X Series archtops—were
some of the finest guitars of the electric guitar’s first golden age. Guild also took risks,
though, and electrics like the Polara and
Thunderbird have the distinction of at once
being some of the oddest and best-playing
solidbodies of the ’60s.
Given its status as both overachiever and
underdog over the years, it’s not surprising
that Guild is something of a vagabond among
American guitar companies, too. Since Guild
was founded in New York City in 1952 (they’ve
been owned by Fender since 1995), the com-
pany has called six cities—including Westerly,
Rhode Island, Hoboken, New Jersey, and
Tacoma, Washington—home. In 2009, Guild
relocated yet again, this time to share factory
space with recent Fender acquisitions Ovation
and Hamer in New Hartford, Connecticut.
And if the D- 50 Standard reviewed here is
any indication, the move has done nothing to
diminish Guild’s ability to build great-playing,
beautiful-sounding acoustics.
Elegant Simplicity
The D- 50 Standard is one of two dreadnoughts in Guild’s Standard series—a line
of New Hartford-built guitars the company
introduced as more affordable alternatives
to the more feature-laden Traditional series
guitars. As such, it lacks a lot of the fancier
appointments, like the Chesterfield inlay, that
tend to scream “Guild” from afar. Up close,
however, this guitar is one classy and handsome marriage of wood and wire.
