i am writing on behalf of this great, under rated, and even side stepped bass guitar. Here’s my opinion without offending anyone or any company: Fender Musical Instruments bought Guild Guitars (made since 1952) out sometime in the ninties, i guess that’s one way corporations get ahead of their competition. Since that change over i have seen little or no mention of a Guild endorsement with the late and great Jaco Pastorius, please reference the following publication: Vintage Guitar Stories Vol 2 (there’s a photo of a guild pilot ad and i also suggest you buy this book) that’s just a few years before Jaco passed away, yes he was promoting and playing the Guild Pilot Bass and using Guild Hartke cabinets. There is another reference of this on the official website link that honors Jaco, http://www.jacopastorius.com/features/writings/hartke.asp Hypothetically when a company is taken over, the new owners may choose the future outcome: product line control and it’s production or lack of, and maybe make value judgements in the area of cross company product confict of interest with other divisions. So have you seen the Guild website lately? Gosh no electric instruments what so ever. I have seen real USA Pilot basses selling on Ebay for small change....new they were 1200.00 on up. don’t get me wrong I do love my Fender basses equally and yes I am aware Jaco played a Fender Jazz Bass and Fender has made a beautiful Tribute Bass to him, but i just love that Pilot Bass too. There are features on it that out do the Fender, the design, it has a tighter feel, more control and sustain. Basically the Fender has a more of a vintage tone and feel vs. the Pilot’s more modern feel and “great in the studio” mojo with those clean active EMG pickups. Hey I say have them both, an artist needs many tones (colors) on the sound pallet. In closing, a little tip: before people realize that Guild electric guitars and basses are no longer in production buy a Pilot Bass before the word gets out and prices go up and up or really buy it for the fact that it’s a great sounding bass guitar.