I have owned a lot of guitars over the past decade, my favorites being SG-types and Flying Vs. This is my first Guild ever. It's a low-cost model compared to the Deluxe. It's the only model available left handed that I could find. I will compare it to my 23 year old Gibson SG to highlight the Pros and Cons of this Guild Polara. I'll start off with my first impression out of the box, which was very good. Fit and finish were very good, Looked like to me that someone actually did some fretwork on the guitar before shipping it. There's some tooling and rub marks on the edge of the fretboard. The frets feel nice, and they're dressed well enough. Much better out-of-the-box feel than I expected for the price. I'd say the frets are ok and I'm not in a rush to have them worked on, unlike a few Epiphones I've had. MIM Fenders have finally started to come with fretboard dressing out of the box, and this is just about as good as those guitars. The frets are smaller than I expected, about the size of vintage Gibson frets (not like newer Fender frets). The neck feels just fine, a slim-taper type with a bit of a shoulder (a rounded U, as the marketing states). The neck doesn't feel thick, but it does feel a bit wider than I'm used to, and that might be the taller shoulders of the U shape playing a part in that. Out of the box the tuning and intonation was ok but nothing a quick setup cant fix. I think it comes with DAddario strings, literature doesn't say. quick tune up and slight lowering… read more of the bridge and I had a good, usable tone. The pickups are hot, at least the bridge is. Similar to a Duncan SH14 (13k ohms, alnico 5). Neck is about 7.5k ohms. This guitar only has master tone and volume so for my style that won't really work as well since I like to have a good volume change between neck and bridge, and still have the ability to control the volumes of each separately. For now it's not an issue. The pickups balance well together after I lowered the neck a few turns. The tone is great for rock and heavy metal. Definitely has a hard heavy sound with a bit of bite. The neck could use a short Alnico 5 magnet or a few less turns (or, a separate volume knob). This would scoop the mids a bit and clear the tone up a little to get some more articulation. I didn't buy this guitar for the pickups (they are nice and if I was less particular with my tone I'd keep them). They look nice, all blacked out, and match the Blue Steel finish of the guitar. Electronics are just fine, work without issue, as expected. Typical of most any brand, the lefty knobs match the left-handed wiring, and the volume pot is linear 500k. That at least makes it usable wired left handed. The tone knob is audio taper, wired 'lefty' as well, but the taper is wrong and it acts like an on-off switch. Pretty typical actually. I'll fix that later by either replacing the pot or wiring them right handed (as I almost always do). I use right handed wiring because I can find any kind of knob I want, and Guild knobs are really hard to find for some reason. The guitar is pretty light, lighter than my SG by half a pound or so. Good feel, feels nice in the hands, not too heavy. Neck dive is meh, nothing my nice strap has to struggle with. The factory tuners are meh as well. They do the job and I suppose that's the best you can ask for. I prefer locking ones, or at least tuners with some style or heft. These have neither. The bridge is a typical Epiphone - import style with the "ABR" look and the wire retainer. Gotoh makes a perfect replacement and Guild should spend the extra $4 and use that instead.Overall this is a nice guitar. It feels nice and plays nice. Out of the box it required little to get a good usable tone. I'll be modifying it to suite my tastes like I do for almost any guitar I buy. I'll like keep this one instead of trying to flip it since its like my go-to SG type but a little different, and its in a nice color that Gibson doesn't make for their SGs. It has a bit of flair and style whilst remaining true to my preferred double cut slab body. I would have bought the Deluxe instead if they made it left handed. The extra pots to control the pickups would be nice and the little bit of extra flash is tasteful on the Deluxe model. Guild make a good first impression on me with this Polara. I would have paid a few bucks more to have nicer tuners and a nicer bridge. Heck for $100 I'd have paid for at least another volume pot. Guild has a good thing here and I'll keep an eye out for the Deluxe model if they make a left handed one.

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