❌ SOLD ❌ Guild Songbird Thin Body Acoustic Electric Black, 1990

Designed by George Gruhn with the staff at Guild, the Guild Songbird is designed to meet the needs of a performing acoustic player and deal with the bane of that existence – feedback. Built from 1984 to 1991, this thin-bodied acoustic electric guitar has an under-saddle pickup with controls on the side. These are common features now, but at the time they were groundbreaking.

The Guild Songbird Thin Body Acoustic Electric features a spruce top paired with mahogany for the body and neck, and rosewood for the fingerboard. The Fishman Transducer is coupled with side-mounted controls featuring a four-band EQ, volume control, and phase switch. Helpfully, there is an LED indicator for the battery being engaged, or low, and it’s always good to have warning of a low battery. The standard 9v battery compartment is easily accessible on the back of the guitar. Tuners are gold-plated Grover Roto-Matics and work well.

This example dates to 1990 and was built in Westerly, Rhode Island. The interior label is missing, but it is in otherwise good shape. The gloss black finish has a few small dings, and some scuffs on the back from normal play wear, but aside from natural sinking to the grain of the spruce is in good condition. It plays well – the Songbird uses a Gibson-esque 24.75 inch scale length, and the body is 13 3/4 inches wide with its 1 7/8 inch depth, so this is also a quite compact and comfortable guitar to play. A form-fitting hard shell case is included.

The Guild Songbird was part of a series of guitars designed with American vintage guitar authority George Gruhn. Gruhn is of course proprietor of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee, and also writes the Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars book, a standard reference and one of the first to bring a formal classification system to the history of American guitar production.