GUILD S-200 Thunderbird

Unique

The most exotic of my Solidbodies. I was stationed in San Diego for my Advanced Electronics training where I liked to wander through downtown and check out the Music stores, and there it was. I thought it was a homemade body put on a Guild neck, but I never saw a headstock like that either! The store clerks didn't know much about it so I put 20 dollars down on it and copied down the serial number. I sent a letter to the Guild Company, in NJ at the time, with the Serial Number 29786 and one question, What is it? I kept paying on the $450 price tag; I was almost 1/2 way there when I got a letter from the Vice President himself (of Guild). Not only did he tell me it is an S-200, but that it was built January 31, 1964, he even sent me an original Thunderbird 'hanger'. So right around her 11th Birthday, a friend’s brother was coming to LA to do some studio work, and I was invited to come and hang out. I really wanted to bring my 'new' guitar, but couldn't come up with the balance; he lent it to me, so off to LA we went with my Thunderbird (what a weekend!).

This is the solidbody equivalent of the Artist Award. Large Blocks of mother of pearl, the inlays on the headstock, the 'set-in' neck and the built in guitar stand make this guitar a modernistic work of art. This is the top of the Jetstar line, sometimes also called the Polara, but that name is also shared by the SG looking electrics. There is a lot of mahogany in this body, hauling the guitar for more than a couple hundred yards is a real chore. This guitar came with 3 types of pickups, described as single coil like P90s, small humbuckers and large humbuckers; mine are the small ones. I may add more info from the HANS MOUST GUILD book in the future.

It came with the original Hard-Shell Case, good thing, because it would have been tough fitting this guitar in another case! The grey tolex and black vinyl is in pretty good shape, the hardware has a little rust, but the inside grey velvet is perfect. It was a player’s guitar; the paint on the neck was worn down, a couple of buckle scars on the back, and a scar inside the upper cutout. Some of the plastic veneer on the headstock was peeled up a little and the slide switches were dirty and noisy.

I went overboard with the 'mother-of-toiletseat' on the headstock. They had a set of Grover Pearloid tuners at the music store, and I was able to cough up the $80 to have them installed, and the black plastic 'professionally' glued down. I was a little more than disappointed, they were sloppy with the glue and it separated again shortly after, and they mounted the tuners at weird angles. Oh well, after I used some super glue on the plastic, it still looks pretty cool. I replaced the slide switches with mini toggles, they were noisy and hard to find, get a hold of and switch while playing. Fortunately I didn't have to make any modifications to make this change, and I have all the original parts too.

I didn't mess with this guitar much; I set the intonation as best as I could, but there isn't a lot of adjustment on this type of bridge.

S-100(?) Thunderbird S-300D Solid Guilds

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