Guild
Latest Guild guitar news, new electric and acoustic guitars, signature models, artist collaborations, and releases tracked by Guitar Radar.
Guitar Radar follows Guild through 1 story and 1 product release, covering new gear, launches and company news as they happen. Most of it sits under gear. The most recent story, from Oct 5, 2026, is “Guild redraws the Starfire line around Deluxe and Custom guitars, plus a Deluxe Bass”. The newest product in the releases catalog is the Guild Starfire Deluxe.
About Guild
Guild was founded in 1952 in New York by Alfred Dronge, who ran an instrument shop and an accordion import business, together with George Mann, a former Epiphone executive. Early output was hollowbody electric guitars suited to Dronge's love of jazz, built from 1953, and by 1956 the company had moved to larger premises in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Its steel-string folk guitars, such as the D-40 and F-250, built its reputation in the early 1960s, and the Starfire semi-acoustic electric appeared in the mid-1960s. Production moved to Westerly, Rhode Island after Guild was sold to the Avnet Corporation; sources differ on the exact year. After Dronge's death in a plane crash in 1972, Guild struggled through the 1970s and 1980s.
Fender bought the brand in 1995. In 2014 it was sold to Cordoba Music Group, which set up new production in southern California. Guitar Radar follows Guild's reissues and new acoustic and electric models.
Sources: Ground Guitar: Guild guitars · Equipboard: Guild · Crave Guitars: Guild
