FACTOIDS & TRIVIA

When is a Starfire VI not a Starfire VI? When it’s part of the mysterious New Hartford-era “white body” GSR series of instruments. With its Gibson-shaped body and Seth Lover pickups, the GSR Starfire VI is perhaps the least Guild-like of the New Hartford GSR series, but let’s try to overlook the Gibson style features and evaluate it on its own merits. The GSR has a laminated flame maple body. The back is a 2-piece affair which differs from the 1-piece back of the original SF-VI. The spruce top is very unusual on a Starfire, but isn’t without precedent. It’s not clear when or where the bodies were made, but they were stored in Tacoma for some time prior to being sent to New Hartford where they were kept with the whitewood bodies that were used for other GSR models.

The neck appears to use a standard dovetail joint, not the large mortise and tenon joint found on Gibson ES-335 type guitars. It joins the body at the 19^th fret as on the ES-335 rather than at the 18^th fret as on the post-1965 Starfire. At least the neck is very Guildy with an ebony fingerboard inlaid with mother-of-pearl blocks and abalone V inserts. The controls use the standard Guild layout, too with the pickup switch on the treble horn, volume and tone controls for each pickup, and output jack mounted on the side. However, the GSR lacks the master volume that is found on the original Starfire VI. The original Starfire VI was most often fitted with a Guildsby B-7, but it sometimes came with the engraved harp tailpiece. The GSR version goes Gibson with a tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail combo. Despite the cognative dissonace here, this guitar is insanely good in terms of playability and sound.

 Body:  Semi-hollow; laminated 2-piece spruce top, 2-piece flame maple back with flame maple sides; 7-ply bound top, 3-ply bound back

 Finish:  Antique Burst, nitrocellulose

 Neck:  3-piece mahogany/maple, set-in; black headstock overlay with mother-of-pearl logo and G shield inlay

 Fingerboard:  Ebony, bound; mother-of-pearl block markers with abalone inserts

 Number of Frets:  22

 Pickguard:  Acrylic

 Bridge:  Gotoh TonePros TP6 tune-o-matic with TonePros stop tailpiece, gold

 Nut:  Bone

 Tuners:  Gotoh 301, gold

 Pickups:  Two,Seymour Duncan Seth Lover  humbucking with adjustable pole pieces, gold

 Controls:  Tone and volume controls for each pickup, 3-way pickup selector

 Scale Length:  24 3/4 inches

 Neck Width at Nut:  1 11/16 inches

 Body Width at Lower Bout:  16 3/16 inches

 Body Depth:  1 3/4 inches

 Weight:  6.7 lb