Guild Artist Award

This is my main guitar these days. It's a traditional jazz box made with maple sides and back, a spruce top, and an ebony fingerboard. It dates from the late 80s.

The acoustic sound is great...sweet and responsive. The electric sound is decent, but requires some fussing with. Earlier generations of this guitar had better pickups, I hear, so I'll probably try some alternatives eventually.

The guitar is decorated with a lot of mother-of-pearl, and the metal parts are gold-plated—it's really pretty tasteless. But it plays and sounds great, and it was a lot cheaper than the other solid-wood archtops at the time.