Guild Aristocrat Bluesbird Freshman Hybrid 1966 Sunburst

I have always wanted a vintage Guild Aristocrat but they have become prohibitively expensive. I decided to build my ideal version using vintage Guild parts. This instrument started out as a 1966 Guild Freshman. The body and neck have no breaks or repairs. First, I cut plugs for the f holes. Ultimately, I decided that the guitar sounded best with one f hole closed and one open, so only one f hole is plugged in the final instrument. Next, I located a vintage Guild mini humbucker (anti hum pickup) to install in the bridge position. In the neck position, I installed a vintage Gibson mini humbucker hidden under a gold Guild pickup cover. I used a Gibson rather than Guild in the neck position because the Gibson mini buckers are a little brighter than the Guilds. I tried many bridges and found that an aluminum Bigsby bridge sounded best. It is compensated for a plain G. It rests on the original Guild posts. I introduced a three way pickup switch. The guitar has a master tone and volume knob. The original tailpiece looked too big from a design standpoint, so I bought a smaller reissue Aristocrat tailpiece and used gold metal leaf  (also used on bridge pickup cover) to turn the tailpiece gold. The guitar has new tuners. The pickguard is an adapted vintage Guild pickguard. Now, what is that weird wooden thing on the back of the guitar? It is a spacer that I designed that can be attached via the strap buttons. I found that the acoustic response of the body was much more lively when the back was free to vibrate rather than being muted by being pressed against the player's body. The spacer keeps the player's body from touching the back of the guitar. In the end, this is a wonderful guitar. It sounds especially good for jazz and has the qualities that only truly hollow body guitars have. The electronics are great and a really nice match to this body. I feel that the final guitar is actually better sonically than any existing iteration of the vintage Aristocrat. A sound sample is available on the PheoGuitars14 page of Soundcloud.

The guitar will be shipped in a gig bag, but very well packed. $60 fixed shipping to the continental US only.