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Four or five years ago, my son spent a summer of odd jobs and table-waiting to get the money for a good electric guitar. So, one fine day, he comes lugging in this gorgeous, blonde, double cutaway, semi-hollowbody with dual humbuckers and it looks for all the world like a Guild Starfire!
Of course, it says "DeArmond" on the headstock and it's got a "D" everywhere that the Guild would have a "G." This Korean-made instrument is utterly FINE! It came right out of the store with perfect intonation and pickups adjusted to compensate in volume for a soft G string. There was no way I could tweak it that would improve it a BIT! The action is sublime and the tone is just what you'd expect from a Guild: balanced, yet tending toward the bright and well-defined. It cost him around $900.00.
Until that moment, I had seen a few apparently-budget DeArmond models, mostly solidbodies with vintage-looking pickups and even a Bigsby or two, but Son's guitar just knocked me out! He is heavily into Jazz and knows chords that I can't even pronounce; this all-but-a-Guild is just perfect for him.
I seem to recall that Fender acquired Guild some years back and moved production to Arizona (???). I've heard that the DeArmond line was their "budget" line, but I cannot see why anyone would want to pay the extra bucks for a Guild name when one could have an axe as great as my son's for under a thousand dollars! He later told me that the brand had been discontinued by Fender--and I can sure see why!
Anybody in these parts know about DeArmond electrics?
Anxiously Yers,
dbt
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