’86 Nightbird GG

It took me thirteen years to find this beauty after failing to persuade the engineer at a studio I used to use to sell me his despite my repeated begging. Just when I had given up, one of my mates saw one advertised. One call and it was mine.

Few of these appear to have been made between ’86 and early ’87, though several colourways were offered.  They hardly ever come up for sale and like many older Guilds, they’re extremely well-made and finished. This model was co-designed by vintage doyen, Nashville’s George Gruhn, and incorporates a lot of his experience of handling top-level vintage instruments.

Although it is slightly larger than a Les Paul, and is chambered, I regard it as my LP Custom, only better. It’s an early one, but not one of the first batch which were fitted with Seymour Duncan pickups.  This has the twin active EMG humbuckers which were factory-fitted on all subsequent production.  Their coils can be tapped and their phase reversed, but this sucks tone for my taste (a bit like the Varitone on Gibson’s high-end semis).   I like the regular untapped/in-phase sounds, which can be warm and jazzy, but can also articulate for fusion and blues.

There’s some relevant info at The Nightbird Pages web site.  It’s near mint, with original matching fitted hard case, also in excellent condition.