Guild S-100 Polara

Made in 1997 or 98. Made in USA. Mahogany body and neck rosewood fretboard 24-3/4 scale length neck. seymour duncan JB in Bridge, seymour duncan '59 in neck. Pickup phase reversal switch on the JB pickup. Guild adjust-o-matic bridge, Polara stop tailpiece Natural finish Grover tuners

I love this guitar plays beautifully but was unhappy with the stock pickups just sounded to muddy. So I put a dimarzio super distortion in the bridge and a dimarzio PAF 151 pro in the neck and man does this guitar sound that much better. I also rewired the phase switch to a coil tap switch instead, which i found to be much more usfull than the phase switch I liked it so much that I added another coil tap for the neck pickup as well. I can get an extremely wide variety of sounds. I play through two 1967 Ampeg Gemini II Combo amps and a wide array of pedals whats currently on my board im using now are..Electro harmonix Poly Chorus, Holy Grail Reverb, Guyatone Flip series TubeEcho, Sans Amp Classic Pre amp, Rat Distortion pedal, TC Electronics Phaser, Boss Ds-1 Distortion(Modded), Boss Super Shifter, Maxon sd-9 Sonic Distortion, Boss DD-5 Digital Delay W/ External Tap pedal, Jim Dunlop Stereo Tremelo, Boss Chorus Ensemble, Boss TU-2 Tuner.

This guitar really had no flaws at all Bought it brand new with plastic still on the pickgaurd Only things really were pickups and a professional setup was needed

This guitar is well made for live playing recording and anything else you would wanna do. Has such a wide variety of sounds And you can really play this thing hard.

never had to deal with them before

I have been playing guitar for 15 years, i also have a fender mexican stratocaster, Univox Les Paul copy, Fender 72 reissue Telecaster Deluxe, A cheap japanese gibson sg copy, And the First guitar I owned An Ibanez RG 100. If anything ever happened to this guitar guitar i would do my best to replace it.

Probably the best part of the guild s-100 is the features. Mine's a re-issue from the mid 90s with duncans wired for phase shifting. This feature gives you a wide tone range from very mellow to very trebly - espeically on the middle selector.

This is where it stands above the Gibson SG in my opinion - even though the S-100 light and thin it has a lot of sustain. The look is amazing; mine is white and over 10+ years has developed a glow-in-the-dark look.

I play mostly progressive and metal (not trying to combine the two like Opeth) and this guy is not the be-all guitar. Then again, nothing is. When I want twang I reach for a tele, when I want death metal, I reach for my BFG with EMGs. The S-100 is used for everything in between.

I use a Boss GT-8 board mainly using the rectifier distortion with quite a bit of bass and the S-100 performs great. The neck plays very fast and the bridge pup screams for solos. Mid-selector with the phase shift up is great for clean and down is great for rhythm distorted. I think Zep fans would really dig this sound much more than the new chambered Les Pauls and this guy is less than half the cost.

Factory set-up is a mystery as I got it used. The previous owner used heavy strings (I guess 11s) and I switched to 10s without any trouble. Action is low, which I like, and the finish is high quality and it plays fast. Not as fast as a no-finish neck, but comparable. I really like the bridge system on this guy more than my Les Paul.

Very well built machine. When I got it, there was 1 tiny chip, but nothing else. As I've been playing, no new nicks or scratches have appeared. I haven't gigged with it, but I'm sure it would be fine. I'd gig with a tele for certain songs, but I'm sure it would do fine alone. The only complaint about this guy is the strap buttons. They're very thin and cheap straps tend to fall off.

No more Guild and certainly no more new S-100s. The previous owner did leave the original owner's manual that has a list of Guild certified repair shops and maybe some of those are still around.

I recently got offered $1600 for it, but said no. I doubt many will come around and I'm putting my price tag as priceless. I really enjoy playing this guy and if you can find one, go for it. Any price less than $2000 is a bargain for what you get. I know a lot of people think the phase shifting is worthless, but I really enjoy that so much that I put coil tap on the BFG. If it were stolen, I'd look for another, but the only compromise would be much more expensive.

1997 Guild S-100 Polara made in Westerly, Rhode Island. Black, solid mahogany body and neck with rosewood fretboard. 24-3/4 scale, shaped very much like an SG, but slightly less symmetrical body. Stocked with SD JB in bridge, '59 in the neck. Has the pickup phase reversal switch. Guild Adjust-o-Matic bridge and a unique "Polara Stop Tailpiece" which is really like a harp tailpiece, resembling the tailpieces from when the Les Pauls became SGs. High-quality Guild tuners, very much like the sealed Grovers on my Bluesbird. Handmade. Great, solid case. "Features" is a matter of choice; I recently swapped out my early '80s Kramer Floyd Rose for a stop tailpiece, so that should tell you what I think of some features. I never use the phase switch, but I'm sure someone does!

A rock and roll beast. To my liking, this the the perfect rock guitar. I usually leave the phase reversal switch down (always, actually), activate only the bridge humbucker, and just go nuts. The tone in this setting (through my Mesa-Boogie F-50 combo) is perfect for all hard rock, from Black Sabbath to White Stripes, to Led Zeppelin to Pearl Jam. When I dial back the gain on my amp, I get a very Pete Townsend, Live at Leeds tone; dialed up more, you get more of a Slash-like tone, especially when you play through a Crybaby and activate the '59; this also works well for heavy blues. Not very adept at playing Stratocaster stuff, like Hendrix or some later Clapton, but I don't really care; no guitar can do it all, nor should it. My Guild Bluesbird with the dual '59s does some classic Zeppelin a bit better, mostly because the JB is more of an aggressive pickup, I reckon. Overall, just an amazing, aggresive tone that is still very controllable and not obnoxious.

Let me put this in perspective. My first major electric guitar purchase was a '95 Gibson SG. My guitar teacher had one from the early '70s that I loved; it just felt great, so I got mine used off of Ebay. What a disappointment: crappy, plastic tuners, marginal build quality, and thought the stock hums (490s) were crap. The sound was...well, not crap, but I expected so much more. I sold my SG and bought a Guild Bluesbird which I loved, but still missed the feel and size of an SG, so I bought the S-100 after listening to some Soundgarden. When I got it, it was like the sun broke through the clouds. The first thing I noticed before I even plugged it in was the quality of craftsmanship. Whereas the neck and the body of my SG was sandwiched together, this guitar was cut from one solid piece of mahogany. The tuners were excellent, and made the SGs laughable, and the pickups...well, I know they're a big company, but I just love Seymour Duncan PUPs. I bought it used, but it was perfectly set up up. A great feel to the guitar, with a slimmer neck than both my old SG and my Bluesbird. Very light weight. When you see Townsend throwing around his clasic SG, you realize you could manhandle this guitar the same way. Very fast-playing guitar. Excellent all around.

Have gigged it a couple of times, and it's been perfect. Stays in tune very well. Strap buttons - like any body style like this - slip out of my strap; plan to install Strap-Loks soon. Right now, I just use a Planet Waves locking strap, which solves the problem, but looks cheap compared to the guitar. Overall, built like Gibralter.

Guild is, for all practical purposed, RIP, sad to say. There's no justice in this world...

This is just an terrific rock and roll guitar. Been playing for over 20 years now, and have owned an SG (yuck; see above), a Guild Bluesbird (that I loved but had to sell to pay bills), an amazing, 1981 Guild D-50 acoustic, an Alvarez-Yairi acoustic, and my original 1982 Kramer Pacer. This is my favorite guitar. It feels perfect and sounds amazing. And for the price I paid, I feel that this is an overlooked gem, though they are getting rare. No guitar will do all things, but for what I need a guitar for, this is as close to Guitar Nirvana as I can get. I'll be in the market for a Bluesbird again when my finances allow, or might check out The Heritage for a real Les Paul; in the meantime, this is my baby!