Guild 1978 B-302-S Stereo Bass Guitar

1978 Guild B-302-S Stereo Bass – Westerly, Rhode Island, USA

This is a 1978 Guild B-302-S, made in Westerly, Rhode Island, serial number 187966.

The B-302 is one of those wonderfully strange late-70s American basses: beautifully built, slightly over-engineered, unmistakably Guild and very much its own thing. Mahogany body and neck, rosewood fingerboard, original-style Guild bridge, Schaller tuners and two large Guild-style single-coil bass pickups.

This one is the considerably less common B-302-S stereo version.

The bass has a three-contact TRS output and the stereo circuit allows the two pickups to be separated, sending them to different signal paths when used with the appropriate stereo/TRS cable. That opens up some genuinely fun possibilities: neck pickup into one amp and bridge pickup into another, separate effects chains for each pickup, different EQ or distortion on each side, or simply running it as a more conventional bass setup. Apparently you could order a stereo version of the B-302 for 30 Dollars extra back in the day.

For anyone into bi-amping, large bass rigs, effects or unnecessarily complicated ways of making a room shake, it's a rather nice feature to have.

The bass is currently fitted with two Guild-style pickups and the familiar B-302 control layout of four knobs plus pickup selector. The electronics have clearly been worked on during its life, so I would describe the instrument as a vintage, modified B-302-S rather than pretend that every solder joint has remained untouched since 1978.

And that brings us to its history.

Some guitars you own and don't particularly wonder where they've been. Others you really wish could tell you their story. This is one of those.

I got this bass from a retired gentleman who used to be in a motorcycle gang. His living room contained a pool table so enormous that getting from one side of the room to the other involved a surprising amount of sideways movement. It somehow felt like exactly the right place to find an old Guild bass.

And somewhere along the way, somebody apparently decided that what this Guild really wanted to be was… a Jazz Bass.

At some point in its life the body was modified for different pickups. You can see the evidence underneath the pickguard: additional routing and mounting holes, including a centre cavity that was later professionally/neatly filled with wood. The pickguard itself also carries evidence of the previous configuration.

Eventually, however, somebody seems to have reconsidered their life choices and returned the bass to its original B-302-style two-pickup configuration.

I'm rather glad they did.

The modifications are largely hidden with the bass assembled, but they're there and clearly shown in the photographs. I'm not interested in pretending otherwise. This is a roughly 48-year-old instrument that has actually had a life.

Cosmetically it shows the expected marks, scratches and wear of a vintage instrument, while retaining what appears to be its original natural finish. The back, neck and headstock all show honest use rather than abuse. Please have a good look through the photographs, particularly the pictures with the pickguard removed, as I've tried to document its condition and previous modifications properly.

The serial number 187966 dates it to 1978, during Guild's Westerly era.

It's a wonderfully peculiar piece of late-70s American bass design: big, solid, beautifully made and full of character. The stereo option makes it even more interesting, particularly today when splitting pickups through separate amps, pedals or modelers is much easier than whatever madness Guild expected bass players to assemble in 1978.

It's not a collector's-case-queen B-302. It's a B-302-S that has been played, modified, changed its mind, survived, and eventually found its way back to being a Guild.

I just wish it could tell me what happened between Rhode Island, the Jazz Bass phase, the motorcycle gang and me.

Because I'm fairly certain I'm missing the best parts of the story. Still.. it's time to let it go.

The Guild gets shipped to Europe only in a hard foam case. Local pickup possible in the Hamburg area. Open to drive somewhere for gas money and a coke.

Also open for trades.