Guild Guitars

Guild guitars was founded in New York in 1952 by Polish immigrant Alfred Dronge and former Epiphone executive George Mann. Dronge owned a music store where he taught music and was a professional musician. At that time Epiphone had moved much of it’s manufacturing from New York to Philadelphia and Drounge and Mann took advantaged of this by using that skilled labor force to produce high quality guitars. They had a reputation for making great archtop electric and acoustic guitars. George Mann left the partnership and shortly after Guild was moved to Hoboken New Jersey. Guilds reputation grew and while their original notoriety came form the archtop they were also producing excellent flat top guitars. Avnet, an electronic company purchased Guild in 1966. Dronge stayed on as president but production was moved to Westerly Rhode Island.
In 1986 Avnet sold Guild to a group of investors in Tennessee. Among them George Gruhn, a Nashville vintage guitar dealer who became vice president of product development and artist relations. Gruhn left the company a few years later. The company came under court ordered financial restructuring and was sold to FASS Corporation of New Berlin Wisconsin in 1989. The company then came under the name U.S. Music Corporation in 1993 and stopped producing most if its electric guitars and focused on producing flat top models. In 1995 U.S. Music sold Guild to Fender Musical Instrument Corporation and production eventually moved to Corona California. In 2002 Fender Musical instrument Corporation acquired the Tacoma Guitar Company of Washington. Production of American Guild moved to Tacoma Washington and Guild electric guitars were discontinued.