FACTOIDS & TRIVIA

This is one of the earliest examples of the Starfire III-90. It was made in Guild's Westerly, RI facility and has the neck pickup placed directly against the end of the fingerboard just like a vintage Gibson ES-330. The majority of the Starfire III-90s produced had the neck pickup located about 3/8 inch from the end of the fingerboard. According to Guild specialist, Bob Willocks, there was re-tooling done when production moved from Westerly to Corona. During this process, it was determined that the neck pickup produced a slightly more harmonically rich tone when distanced from the end of the fingerboard by about 3/8-inch. While the Corona-made SFIII-90’s have a little richer sounding neck pickup, this example's tone can hardly be called anemic. The guitar shown here was a "sample" used for promotional purposes and was featured on the Guild website as well as in Fender Frontline magazine. 

  
  Body: Hollow; laminated 1-piece flame maple top, back, and sides; double bound top and back

  Finish: Natural, nitrocellulose lacquer

  Neck: 1-piece mahogany, set-in; black plastic headstock overlay with pearloid logo and Chesterfield inlay

  Fingerboard: Indian rosewood, bound; pearloid dot markers

  Number of Frets: 20

  Pickguard: Acrylic

  Bridge: Bigsby aluminum on aluminum base with Guild/Bigsby B-2 tailpiece

  Nut: Plastic

  Tuners: Grover Rotomatic, chrome

  Pickups: Two, Seymour Duncan P-90 Custom Antiquity

  Controls: Tone and volume controls for each pickup, 3-way pickup selector

  Scale Length: 24 3/4 inches

  Neck Width at Nut: 1 3/4 inches

  Body Width at Lower Bout: 16 1/4 inches

  Body Depth: 2 inches

  Weight: 6.9 lb