Mid-1960s G.L. Stiles Solidbody

In an earlier Catch of the Day post I professed my ignorance about this builder of this particular guitar. (You can revel in my confusion here.) Happily, our readers knew more than I did and within a few minutes I had the whole story about G.L Stiles, the man who built this, and many other guitars. Gilbert Lee Stiles, who went by the name Lee, was born in Independence, West Virginia in 1914 where he spent the early part of his life working in various wood and timber related industries. Sometime in the late 1950s he moved to Miami, Florida. One day in 1960, on a whim, he decided to make his own guitar, which was a sort of Fender-ish solidbody very similar to this one. (One of our readers perfectly described it as a “Strat holding its fists up and flexing its muscles.”) A few of his friends asked him to build guitars for him, and his new career as a luthier was launched.

G.L. Stiles never issued a catalog and instead made every guitar to order. At the time, there were essentially no sources for parts so Stiles had to pretty much fabricate everything himself, including the pickups. There is no accurate record of how many guitars Stiles built over the years, but it looks like he probably made over 1000 instruments including electric and acoustic guitars, banjos, mandolins, basses and steel guitars. Stiles started tapering off his building in the 1990s and focused instead on repairs and teaching lutherie. Although he was prolific for a solo builder, not many famous players used his guitars. Steve Ferguson, one of the original members of NRBQ, played one, and Tom Petty used to have Stiles work on his instruments when he lived in Florida. This particulary instrument is price at $1250 and currently living at Gruhn Guitars, but I think it would look better hanging on the wall at your house.