Guild F-20NT Model Flat Top Acoustic Guitar (1962), made in Hoboken, NJ, serial # 21054, natural lacquer finish, mahogany back, sides and neck, spruce top; rosewood fingerboard.
The often very fine sounding Guild flattops of the 1960's can be surprisingly hard to find these days, and we always look for them! This guitar is a 1962 natural-top F-20, the smallest body size in the company's line up. The F-20 was the next model up from the all mahogany M-20 (famously regarded as the "Nick Drake" guitar) and is the same size and shape but with a spruce top. This one has the older style "open book" headstock shape with Waverly strip tuners, features which would change by 1965. It is a smooth little finger-or-flatpicking guitar, with a vibrant midrangey sound, and also works very well as a strummed chord machine.
This is an extremely well-built little guitar, much lighter in construction than 1970's Guilds and easily a match in sound for similar Martin offerings from the same era. The guitar has survived with some play wear. It would make an extremely nice recording or gigging guitar, a good player's example of one of the nicer small body flat tops of the 1960's
Overall length is 39 1/4 in. (99.7 cm.), 13 5/8 in. (34.6 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 4 1/16 in. (10.3 cm.) in depth at side, taken at the end block. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.). This is a great sounding little guitar, well played with some old repairs but solid and an excellent player. There are small dings and scuffs overall and some fairly heavy pickwear to the top around the pickguard, through the finish in some spots. The soundhole edge is well worn into below the strings. There two old top grain split repairs, directly under the G (on the center seam) and high E strings from the tailblock to the soundhole, solid but visible. The guitar shows no other cracks. No alerations, does not need a neck set and still plays well with the original full-height bridge. This is not the cleanest F-20 we have had, but one of the best sounding with a lot of vibe played into it! Very Good + Condition.
