GGJaguar's Guitarium and Ampeteria 1961 Guild Starfire III

All images and text copyrighted and property of Greg Gagliano.

FACTOIDS & TRIVIA

The Starfire series was introduced in 1960. Mark Dronge, son of Guild founder Al Dronge, stated that his father named the series after the Oldsmobile Starfire automobile (Mr. Dronge owned a ’55 Olds Starfire 98 that was reportedly quite a runner at 300+ horsepower!). Based on the T-100, the Starfire III differed only in that it had a laminated mahogany body and a Bigsby tailpiece in place of the T-100's laminated maple body and harp tailpiece. The earliest Starfire III's (c. 1960) had laminated mahogany bodies, but examples of these are quite rare. This particular guitar is an early Starfire III and is equipped with DeArmond "Dynasonic" single coil pickups which are the same units that Gretsch used in the 1950s. Not so coincidentally, it was Carlo Greco, a former Gretsch employee, who recommended the DeArmonds as an alternate pickup to the Franz "soapbar" pickup. Sometime during 1961, Guild switched from the standard B-6 Bigsby tailpiece to the Guild/Bigsby tail as on the guitar shown here. The reason for the switch was to disuade dishonest distributors from "forging" Starfire III's using Starfire II's. Both models were identical except that the III used a Bigsby tailpiece and the II used a Guild harp tailpiece. Unscrupulous distributors would buy the less expensive Starfire II, replace the Guild tailpiece with a Bigsby B-6 unit, and then ever so carefully add an extra Roman numeral "I" to the label. Thus, they could sell the fake Starfire III's for a bigger profit than if they sold the authentic model. The Starfire III was very popular and remained in the Guild line until 1972 until is was resurrected from 1997 to 2004, though it was not an exact representation of the original model.

GUILD STARFIRE III (1961)