Some guitars just don’t seem to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes they’re close, but no cigar. One good example is the oak-leaf carved 1974 Guild S-100NB.
Guild was founded in the early ’50s as a result of the chaos that followed labor troubles at the Brooklyn-based Epiphone. After Epiphone packed its bags and traveled down Route 1 to Philadelphia, some craftsmen who stayed behind became the core of the new Guild company. Guild built its reputation mainly by making high-quality acoustic guitars. However, it also made a lot of very good and interesting solidbodies beginning in 1963, some of which have become minor classics. For the next two decades, most of Guild’s solidbody models used the S prefix. They were always well-made, like all Guilds, and often featured innovative electronics and striking designs. Yet Guild solidbodies have never fully reached the top tiers of desirability.
The S-100 design debuted in 1970. It’s often called “Guild’s SG” because of the similarity to the Gibson SG shape and other elements, including the set mahogany neck and lightweight mahogany body. The first S-100 was the Polara Standard, with Guild humbuckers developed in the late ’60s; the name was a carryover from the ’60s that was quickly dropped. These first models had straightforward electronics, with a three-way and two Volume and two Tone controls. The rosewood fingerboards were always bound with block pearl inlays, plus a “Chesterfield” inlay on the head face. In 1971, the Hagstrom stoptail became slanted.
The line evolved beginning in ’72, when the ’60s humbuckers were replaced by then-new Guild HB-1 pickups that today are held in high regard by enthusiasts (and at the time were used by John Veleno on his aluminum guitars). Also, the line was expanded with the S-100 Deluxe, which had a Bigsby horseshoe vibrato. Both the Standard and the Deluxe were given a new phase switch.
In 1974, Guild introduced the model shown here… And this is where some confusion comes in. This model sported a leaf-and-acorn design carved into the top of the guitar. Likely done by machine (though we’re not certain), if you’re too young to remember the ’70s, it was a post-hippie time when “natural” was “in” and something like carving an image from nature into the top of the guitar seemed like a good idea. Most examples, like this, have leaves on the bottom and acorns on the upper horn, however, a few have more leaves in place of the pickguard. The model was heavily promoted in Guitar Player magazine at the time.
In The Guild Guitar Book (1999), author Hans Moust identifies this guitar as the S-100SC, “SC” denoting Standard Carved, though Guild does not seem to have differentiated the models based on the carving, at least not on the guitar itself, or in the advertising for it. Many other sources, including VG contributors/guitar historians George Gruhn and Walter Carter, pick up this SC designation. However, if you pop off the control panel cover, you’ll find this to be the S-100NB model. According to Moust, NB was a finish code and stood for Nature Boy. It was used on Guild’s clear-varnished natural solids.
Most sources – and indeed Guild’s own promotions – only associate the carved bodies with the S-100 Standard model. However, apparently a limited number of S-100 Deluxes were produced with a Bigsby horseshoe vibrato. There were also at least a few corresponding bass examples. At this point, at least one example of the carved body in a transparent cherry finish has been sighted.
The guitar seen here is dated to ’74, the year of the introduction of the model. Its serial number is 101374. The pot dates are 1973. Scratched under the pickup base is the date 2/22/74, which would make this a pretty early one. The guitar came with its original hardshell case. Guild records verify this guitar was produced in ’74, probably somewhere near this early date.
This example is pretty clean and typical of the S-100 Standard with the carving. Pickups are HB-1s, controlled by two Volumes and two Tones with a three-way and a phase switch, reminiscent of the cool Thunderbirds of a decade earlier. Simple and effective. Like its analog, the Gibson SG, this is a lightweight, nimble guitar. The humbuckers are clean and well-balanced, capturing all frequencies cleanly with little intrusion – which was part of this guitar’s problem. The world the S-100 was born into was the golden age of arena rock. Players wanted loud and assertive tones. The young pickup engineer Larry DiMarzio was being noticed and players were replacing their stock pickups with what would become his Super Distortions. In many ways, the Guild S-100 – even its nifty acorns and leaves – feels like it would have been more at home in the late ’60s. Indeed, it would only be a few years later that Guild itself would ditch these humbuckers in favor of DiMarzio pickups.
How many SCs were produced is unknown. The S-100 lasted until ’78, but the acorn-and-leaf models were gone by ’77. Like almost all Guild solids, the S-100s never took the world by storm, despite fairly heavy promotion. It’s hard to imagine them being plentiful. Many regular S-100s wound up in pawnshops, where bargain-hunting grungers looking for something different picked them up in the early ’90s. Kim Thayil of Soundgarden is probably the most prominent contemporary S-100 player, and the model pops up occasionally in the hands of various modern alternative rockers. Kind of ironic that a guitar meant to be quintessentially ’70s but felt more ’60s should finally find its place in the ’90s and beyond!
This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
