In a Class By Itself.

1959 Guild Aristocrat M-75.

One of a very few Carved Spruce-Top hollow body semi-solid sunburst M-75 Aristocrats shipped in 1959. This 13 1/2-inch-wide featherweight guitar weighs just 4.90 lbs. and has a nut width of just over 1 5/8 inches, a scale length of 24 3/4 inches and a wonderful medium-to-thick neck profile. Two and a quarter inch thick Honduras mahogany body and sides, body with triple binding on the top edge, carved spruce top, three-piece mahogany/maple/mahogany neck, and bound rosewood fretboard with 22 original medium frets and inlaid pearl block position markers. Headstock with Inlaid pearl "Guild" logo, pearl "Chesterfield" inlay and four layer black/white/black/white plastic truss rod cover. Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval Keystone buttons (with "D-169400 / Patent No." stamped on the underside). Two white plastic single-coil P-90 style pickups with outputs of 6.19k and 6.01k. Original black "Lucite" four layer black/white/black/white rounded pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch on bass bout. Transparent plastic 'gold-painted' barrel knobs with grub screws. Rosewood bridge with pre-set compensating saddle with two separate feet. Guild 'Harp' tailpiece. This near mint example is by far the finest 'Aristocrat' that we have ever seen. There are just a few very miniscule surface marks on the back and some very fine finish checking on the top. The original frets and Brazilian rosewood fretboard show virtually no signs of playing wear whatsoever. Complete with it's original 'hang-tag' with matching serial number and also the original Guild cream guitar cord. Housed in the original Guild imitation brown leather soft-shell case with crimson plush lining (9.00).

"Unlike most of the other models in the early Guild line, the Aristocrat M-75 was not a mere descendant of the earlier Epiphone line. What as first sight looks like a solid body instrument, styled after a Gibson "Les Paul" model, is really a scaled-down version of a hollow body guitar. The following is an excerpt from the '54-catalog: "the use of an exclusively developed lighter semi-solid body construction gives the Guild Aristocrat a magnificence of tone never before achieved in a guitar of this size. And for ease of handling and playing, this light weight, semi-solid midget model is in a class by itself".

It is quite obvious that Guild was going for the players who were attracted by the compact size of the Gibson Les Paul but who did not like it's weight. Also, the sound of the M-75 was not anywhere near the sound of a Gibson Les Paul. It was a hollow body instrument and it sounded like one. Because of its smaller size and the absence of the traditional f-holes, the instrument was somewhat less prone to feedback than most of the hollow body instruments available at the time. It was also the only instrument in the early range to be offered with the shorter 24 3/4" scale length." (Hans Moust, The Guild Guitar Book, p. 56).

"Most Guild guitars from the fifties and early sixties were equipped with single-coil pickups that look similar to the P-90s, that were used on the majority of electric guitars made by the Gibson company during the same period… According to Gilbert Diaz, who has been with Guild since 1957, these pickups were made by Franz, a company based in Astoria, N.Y. A typical, and often overseen, feature of these early single-coils is the difference in polepiece spacing between the bridge and fingerboard pickups. This practice lasted until approximately 1958, after which all pickups had the narrow (fingerboard type) polepiece spacing." (Hans Moust, The Guild Guitar Book, p. 30).