Guild was founded by Alfred Dronge, a professional guitarist and music store owner, and George Mann, a one-time Epiphone executive who formed a partnership and registered the Guild name in October of 1952.
Guild attracted the biggest guitarists of the day. Johnny Smith worked with the factory to develop a signature guitar which became the Artist Award. Another jazz giant, George Barnes, helped develop another signature guitar. Both of these models were in high demand among studio performers, and Guild's Duane Eddy signature hollow-body became a rockabilly classic.
Through the 1970's and early 80's guild produced some of the great American flat tops with their 112, 212, 312, 412, 512, and the XL versions of their legendary 12 strings and their F50, D25, D25M and D55 dreadnaughts.
Guild was eventually purchased in 1995 by Fender Musical Instruments which committed its resources to the survival and prosperity of the Guild vision of tradition, innovation and value. But it didn't seem to quite work as planned and many dealers, including The Podium, became a little disappointed with Guild guitars during this period and felt they had lost a step from their heyday.
In 2005, with a renewed dedication to excellence in craftsmanship and a newly invigorated devotion to "getting it right" that would make Alfred Dronge proud, Guild began building all of its Traditional and Contemporary Series guitars in Tacoma, Washington. This shop was dedicated to building a great acoustic instrument. In addition, the Guild Acoustic Design (GAD) Series instruments started to be built in China.
The bottom line is that the musicians and luthiers took over and they got it right this time with no sacrifices to the accounting gods. Now there is nothing quite like the strong, lush and crystal-clear sound of a fine and finely built Guild acoustic guitar which are as good as they were in the 70's.
