Gibison CEO speaks

[fr0sty]

Interesting article.

USA Today article

[SeventhSon]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

great article!

[JacksonRob]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

Interesting reading. Thanks!

[MBreinin]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

I especially like the part about raising prices.

If you make something difficult to obtain, more people will want to obtain it simply for that reason.

Mike

[sully]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

that and the part about factory tolerances and the now vs. then syndrome.

[shreddermon]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

He makes some good points. He also slathers on some thick [img]/images/graemlins/bs.gif[/img], too.

[skorb]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

[ QUOTE ]
So I got into the factory and I picked up a guitar. Got the employees around. "See this guitar," I said. "This guitar says Gibson on it, and it's not Gibson quality. So, here's what we do." I took the guitar, and I smashed it on the factory floor. I said any guitar that doesn't make the grade is going to be put in a pile, and we are going to take a chain saw to it every week. We are doing that to this day. We have Japanese dealers who just cry when they see the pile. It's a very small pile, though, now.

[/ QUOTE ]

now they call the pile the Faded Models. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Zerberus]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So I got into the factory and I picked up a guitar. Got the employees around. "See this guitar," I said. "This guitar says Gibson on it, and it's not Gibson quality. So, here's what we do." I took the guitar, and I smashed it on the factory floor. I said any guitar that doesn't make the grade is going to be put in a pile, and we are going to take a chain saw to it every week. We are doing that to this day. We have Japanese dealers who just cry when they see the pile. It's a very small pile, though, now.

[/ QUOTE ]

now they call the pile the Faded Models. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Ouch, that hurt [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

But seriously, he makes quite a few very good points, like how totally Ruined Gibson was thanks to Norlin....

[VulfgangPfuck]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

[ QUOTE ]
Q: Why are older, vintage guitars investments that tend to fetch a lot more money when you are essentially making the same product now?

A: What makes markets? Scarcity. So how many 1959 guitars were there? Three hundred. Gibson was a pretty big company in 1959. We sold 300 Les Pauls. Was that a business success? The answer is no. It was not a popular guitar, which is why we only made 300.

But because we only made 300 – I have a poster of about a hundred of the known 300 1959 guitars. And 80% would not pass our reissue standards. Everybody thinks a 1959 guitar has this tight curly maple flame. I can tell you the new ones, the reissue ones, have incredibly tight specifications on the curl.

[/ QUOTE ]

This one really pissed me off in particular...
How can you compare a vintage guitar to a brand new guitar?!
Not only that...say that the new guitar was far better than the vintage, because the vintage was handmade. Goes to show you...Henry is all about the almighty dollar, and what HE thinks the guitars should be. He still doesn't give half a shit about the little idiosychracies that made the vintage guitars so desirable, and fucking DIFFERENT from one to the next!!
[img]/images/graemlins/bs.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/eviltongue.gif[/img]

This is why you have guys like Seymour making true "vintage spec" pickups. Fuck that stupid "Burstbucker" thing that's supposed to sound like a genuine '58 humbucker. The '57 Classic was the closest thing they ever got, and even that was sketchy sounding at best.

[zeegler]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

So basically, he's saying what I have said all along. Gibsons aren't actually worth more because they are better. The prices are artificially inflated to make people want them more. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[FusionFarmer]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

[ QUOTE ]
So basically, he's saying what I have said all along. Gibsons aren't actually worth more because they are better. The prices are artificially inflated to make people want them more. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
kinda like Marshalls

[Newc]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

Ironically, that was Jackson's initial mindset back in the 80's. A Soloist was $2500 back then, yet Les Paul Customs were half of that or less brand new. Jackson's philosophy (as stated by Grover in an interview at the time) was basically that he wanted people to take his brand seriously, and people always take an expensive item seriously.

[Zerberus]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So basically, he's saying what I have said all along. Gibsons aren't actually worth more because they are better. The prices are artificially inflated to make people want them more. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
kinda like Marshalls

[/ QUOTE ]

No, Marshalls are inflated because the EURO is so much stronger than the dollar and Marshall sets it´s prices in Euros, as well as paying their Shipping companies from UK-> us the already much higher Euro rate... you guys also have to pay import tax... all simply things you have to deal with if you want to do business on a global scale.

Look at it this way: Now maybe you can understand our frustration with J/C´s international distribution and the exhorbitant prices over here, even if to a much smaller extent...

[clifffclaven]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

[ QUOTE ]
Ironically, that was Jackson's initial mindset back in the 80's. A Soloist was $2500 back then, yet Les Paul Customs were half of that or less brand new. Jackson's philosophy (as stated by Grover in an interview at the time) was basically that he wanted people to take his brand seriously, and people always take an expensive item seriously.

[/ QUOTE ]+1000 [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] my les paul (used) in 85 cost me $400 including tax. I couldve bought a brand new white custom in 1990 for $1000 at a shop here in town, and they had 3 on the rack. I got my model 4 for $700, which I thought was a deal in 88. Now, the LP is worth 3x what I paid, and the model 4 is worth 1/3... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[fett]

Re: Gibison CEO speaks

This is a classic "brand" story. Chivas Regal was an average bottle of booze. Then they raised the price to put in the "premium" class and started hyping it. It's just the same bottle of booze. What makes old Gibsons and old Fenders and old generic guitars better is the age of the wood; the real hands on everything and the fact that they were not mass produced. Older is always better. [img]/images/graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]