Caution: Fragile. The most breakable electric guitars.

[SEEGERMANY]

I prefer to ship USPS, but they've been getting kind of squirrelly on box sizes lately. I've had good luck with both UPS and FedEx. The UPS Store has become really convenient, so unless a buyer asks for something different, it's going UPS.

[Grandturk]

But another thing that really was a weak point for Gibson guitars was their headstocks. The angle in which the wood was spliced and glued back together again made for a very fragile headstock-neck joint. Gibson addressed this by adding a neck volute and changing the angle of the headstock joint but to no avail. These days, Gibson splices the wood further down the neck which creates a much stronger headstock-neck joint.

Gibson necks were (and are again now) 1 piece mahagony, from the tip to the tail. They changed to 3 piece maple with volute in the 70's to address breakage issues. Breakage generally occurs a the headstock because the angle of the headstock and the direction of the grain means that area is the weakest part of the neck.

"Splicing" or creating a scarf joint actually positions the grain in the correct direction which would make that area stronger - but Gibson did not build necks with a scarf joint in that era.

[Rsmacker]

Yep, Flying V's are a bastard for breaking the headstock when they get laid down heavily (ie. dropped). Not so long ago there were a load of brand new Vs about in the UK that had all been snapped and Gibson-repaired before being flogged off as Grade Bs.

Never had any problems with my Sabres, one of which is really early, in fact use it as a work-horse/doss guitar. I'll be a bit more careful with it now, just in case!