Up for sale, a 1999 Guild Blues 90 electric guitar in excellent condition and in perfect working order. This USA made and P-90 equipped version of the Guild Bluesbird as produced in Guild's Westerly, Rhode Island factory, and was only available for a few short years before the turn of the century and Guild's acquisition by Fender! Like the Bluesbird before it, the Blues 90 has a chambered body that both relieves weight and contributes to the sweet, airy tone of the guitar. The P-90 pickups in the Blues 90 were manufactured by Seymour Duncan, and there's plenty of articulation and growl available, responding well to a variety of tube amps and really excelling when driving an amp to the brink of natural tube overdrive. Weighing only 8lbs, the Blues 90 is acoustically resonant and visually striking as well, with a bookmatched red flame maple top. Professionally setup here at Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar, the Blues 90 has low action and fresh 10-46 strings. The necks on the Blues 90s are known for being very big, and this guitar is no exception, with a generous, baseball bat C profile that fills the palm. The profile has plenty of depth down at the 1 11/16" nut, yet grows even deeper in the higher registers of the board. The result is a neck that really adds to the sustain, resonance and overall tone of the instrument, while fretting very easily and feeling akin to the best Gibson necks of the late 1950s. The original frets are intact on the rosewood fretboard, and the frets show only light wear in the first position down near the nut. The frets have their full, original height and the guitar plays cleanly up the neck with no buzzing or dead spots. On the headstock, Guild branded chrome tuning machines turn smoothly and hold pitch well. All of the electronics work as they should, with individual volume and tone controls for each P-90 pickup. The chrome "Nashville" bridge and stopbar tailpiece have clean chrome plating, and the original amber speed knobs are present as well (this guitar had numerous knob variations, but for this year the speed knobs appear to be the standard compliment). The flame maple top has consistent and nuanced figuring, and it's hard to capture the detail and variance of the flame in the photos! Cosmetically, this is a very clean and well kept instrument, with a couple tiny indentations in the top just north of the bridge (too small to photograph properly) and light scratches in the pick path on the top as well. There are a few faint finish scratches on the back, and a couple light spots of delamination along the edges of the headstock face veneer, but overall this Bluesbird is in exceptional shape. A Guild hardshell case is included. This case fits the body shape perfectly and is actually older than the guitar, with working latches, a clean gold "Guild" silkscreen logo and badge on the exterior, and original handle. The case is structurally sound, although there is a bit of black gaffe tape around a few edges.
