My former boss was Gibson's biggest retail dealer in the USA in the late 80's and early 90's. He had four stores in Nashville. He knew all those guys, and when he couldn't compete with the internet and Sam Ash and Musician's Friend, he semi-retired and opened a tiny store in Florida, where he hired me. I became his protege and over the course of several years, told me all the industry poop on all the big brands, including Fender and Gibson.

He never liked Gibson as a company. All he plays are Gibson guitars.

I posted a long, in-depth reply to the first post on this forum about Gibson getting busted for importing illegal Mahogany whenever that happened, about seven or eight years ago. I got lambasted, and everyone wanted to talk about how it was an Obama-admin crucifixion of an American brand. I gave the "inside the industry" perspective, which was that Gibson is widely known for shady, shitty practices. Uncool, I guess.

Color me completely unsurprised that the bean-counters at Gibson have run the brand into the ground.

That $80k buy-in to the brand in the early 2000's kept my store from being able to afford becoming a Gibson dealer, and there was no way we could afford the wall space for some of their really stupid offerings that ran several grand a pop OF WICH THEY WOULD PICK AND TELL US WHAT WE WERE GOING TO SELL, vs letting the store pick and choose how to invest the money. And yet, we worked on many a brand-new Gibson that was purchased from Muscian's Friend or Guitar Center. We're talking full setups on completely unplayable guitars. I had to bottom out a few truss rods, and upon my boss' evaluation and the customer's agreement, I did a fret dressing on a brand-new, un-played Custom Shop ES335 '60-something reissue that had a ski slope for a neck and four high frets between 12-16. PLEK my ass. When I was done with it, it played like silk and the customer was happy, but we didn't get the profit on it, just the labor. Three thousand dollar guitars sitting in boxes, stacked on pallets in un-conditioned warehouses is what Gibson cared about. Playable guitars ending up in customer's hands is what they didn't care about.

So I guess I'll be the lone voice here that has played third-party product support for Gibson in loudly saying "Fuck Gibson corporate, and may a better man buy the brand and do it with respect and honor."

I own two Les Pauls and they will go nowhere, but I'll be happy to see Gibson corporate go under. Call this equivalent to the end of the CBS era of Fender.

For what it's worth, since I moved away, my old store bought into Fender's line at ab out $25k and they can hardly keep them on the wall. Not because it's Fender, but because it's an American brand guitar that people can purchase at a small shop that actually gives a shit about properly setting the guitars up to play. Gibson can have all the big box stores and die. Fender kept their eye on the small stores and is thriving. /shrug

No love lost for Gibson. The Les Paul, while the guitar of my childhood dreams has always been a flawed instrument. That made PRS hugely successful. (Also why I own PRS guitars.)


On another, happier note - Ron Thorn, Luthier extraordinaire of Thorn inlays and Thorn Guitars has just been hired by Fender as their principal master builder for FCS. Huge props to Ron!
https://www.thegearpage.net/bo...custom-shop.1936918/

I see that Gibson has filed for bankruptcy now.
I've had a Les Paul Custom, it's heavy, has sharp edges and the neck is a baseball bat.
But nothing sounds like is plugged into a Marshall stack.

But nothing will garner my attention like my Rickenbacker 360.

Cool! Nothing excites people more than my two Rickenbacker basses (4003 and 4001C64LH). For some reason, people LOVE those basses.

quote:

Originally posted by Steyn:
Cool! Nothing excites people more than my two Rickenbacker basses (4003 and 4001C64LH). For some reason, people LOVE those basses.

They sound plucky, and are so easy to restring....
But they still love them.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
Gibson has been burning bridges for years.

This.

Gibson is the Remington of guitar companies, their quality has been shitty for years, while charging thousands for inferior products. I have one Gibson, a Les Paul Jr from years ago. For a quality guitar, I purchased a PRS Custom rather than Gibson. Reap snd sow.