This is my rare and cool Guild Jetstar. I got this from Al Pepiak around 1993 in a trade for a mutant Dano/Silvertone I'd thrown together. Al was a bit reluctant to trade, not because of its rarity but because of it's ugliness. He even sent me a Polaroid picture to either dissuade me or at least let me know what I was getting into. This bass had apparently been dipped into a vat of varnish. It was covered from head to toe in varnish except for the hardware and electronics. Even the fretboard was covered!! Nonetheless, Al eventually was convinced that I hadn't lost my mind completely and made the trade.

When I received the bass, I still wasn't prepared for what it looked like. Not only was it varnished, the frets had been removed and the headstock overlay was replaced with a thick piece of clear plexiglass with "GUILD" written on the underside. I also found the truss rod cover underneath the bridge serving duty as a plate to keep the bridge height adjustment screws from digging into the body.

I left it pretty much as it was for years except for replacing the plexi headstock overlay with a more traditional black one which I labeled crudely with a silver paint marker so people wouldn't always ask what it was. I also replaced the single coil pickup with a Schaller bass humbucker because all the pictures I had seen up to that point showed the bass with a single humbucker in it. It turns out that while the bass was routed for a humbucker originally, Guild later switched to a single coil and made a mounting ring to cover the original rout.
Around 1997 the drummer in my band (at the time) took it and removed all the varnish from it. Shortly afterwards, I had my favorite luthier, Bill Stultz of Martinsville, IN, install new frets. The result is as you see here. It's a very nice playing bass with a great vintage sound. The neck is very narrow like a jazz bass and has a comfortable feel to it. The original tuners and bridge are still on it and were made by Hagstrom. You'll notice it also has both thumb and finger rests. Maybe someday I'll have it refinshed in a sunburst or cherry red.

One of the reasons I wanted this bass was because it matched my early 60's Guild Thunderbird guitar. Earlier Jetstars had the humbucker pickup and a 2-on-a-side headstock, unlike mine.