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lionel

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  1. Here's my two cents worth: I had heard all about these deteriorating pickguards years ago, but since my guitar is more that fifty years old, I figured that I had dodged a bullet. A couple years ago, after moving into a historic (100+ year-old) house during a very hot/humid summer, I noticed that one of the strings had broken and that there was a little rust around some of the pickup screws. I mistakenly attributed the damage to the climatic conditions, cleaned the guitar up and put it away again. Just recently, now living in the desert southwest, I opened the case after about a year and, lo and behold, two broken strings and a crapload of rust/green corrosion. After some investigation and reaching out to experts, George Gruhn told me that even a decades-old instrument that has never suffered from this problem can suddenly develop it. So there you go; I only knew half of the story. My advice to anyone who owns one of these guitars with a nitrocellulose pickguard is to remove the damned thing (unless you play the guitar frequently and can monitor its condition). You can also get "replica" pickguards (made out of a non-gassing modern plastic), but they are expensive as hell (one quote was around $200; now, THERE'S the ripoff). (I just checked my '80 Guild X-500, and so far, everything is copacetic. But the Guild has a black pickguard. Does anyone know if this problem is limited to the "tortiseshell" pickguards, or can it happen to any color pickguard?). Good luck, guys.
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