Official Luthiers Forum!

Guess we all saw this coming


http://variety.com/2018/biz/news/gibson ... 202704143/

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

“ Fender, has kept itself above water by introducing budget lines in recent years, a move Gibson only recently embraced.”
Hmmm...Gibson does have budget lines and has for some time.
Well, I’ve avoided Gibson as a consumer because I think their quality stinks. I hope they get it together and survive anyway.

I feel for the employees who may have their livelihoods on the line.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

This is both great opportunity and some highly educating insights. Here's some of my thoughts...

1. The point of being in business is to make money, not make history. If you happen to make money while you make history, then so be it. Gibson since I've been in the world of guitar (since 2006 when I started playing) has always seemed to be chasing the next "History maker". Rather than focusing on what is proven and what works they went for things like the Firebird X. And before that, the Zoot Suit series, Robot Guitar, MVX, Marauder, Corvus, even in the 30s the HG24.

2. Never sell a name, sell a product, and make it a great one. Gibson has been relying on old men with money to keep buying their stuff. The problem is that old men die.

3. Quality Control matters. I literally could have started a small side business along with my repair business just to tell people if the SG/Les Paul they just bought from GC was ok or needed to be returned. My favorite was the ES335 filled with wood chips and the neck was potato chipped from the factory.

4. If you have a shop, consider offering a job to some of the workers from the Gibson factory. It'd be a nice way to turn a bad situation around, you can't possibly hire all of them but I'm sure there's a few workers there who know their stuff and would be worth their salt.

5. Regarding the CEO, I'm reminded of what Plato said "A wise man speaks because he has something to say, a fool speaks because he has to say something"

I've read every article about this current situation with Gibson.... Of course, the problem is really all the money Henry borrowed to buy all those non-guitar companies. Even with all its faults, Gibson Guitars is actually in good financial shape. It's the corporation that's about to blow apart.

I think the writing is on the wall for Henry. It's obvious to me and all the stockholders his cheese has slid off his cracker. Time for someone else to run the company RIGHT. Sell off all of it but the core business, and then focus like a laser on making good stuff that people want to buy. Ditch the hokey electronics and doodads, the weird guitars, and make high quality boutique level guitars.

Yes - keep Epiphone, but ditch Signature, Maestro, Orville and all the cheap crap made overseas. Instead of making 100 flavors of Les Pauls from wretched to awe inspiring - make 10 in a price range from a grand to five grand. Set the bar HIGH and keep it there.

Don't worry about an overseas outfit taking them out of America. They know darn well no one in his right mind would buy a Gibson from anywhere else. Might be an investment group that likes good guitars (just like when Henry and pals bought Gibson from Norlin - another failed conglomerate that was in debt up to its eyeballs).

I have faith that Gibson will endure in some fashion once Henry is booted to the curb. I hope it's soon. And I trust it will all work out fine. Don't listen to the fearmongers.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I'm with you on that.

Headlines are what they are...

Believe it when I see it...I remind you these same rumors of demise have been swirling around Guitar center for the best part of a decade now.

And it wouldn't surprise me if that same dude, Robert whatever, who is always prophesying the GC death isn't the same guy behind this noise.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Isn't that innovation instead of resting on one's laurels? At some point old people die and who wants to buy 9 pound Les Pauls for $3k when an Epiphone is a fraction of the cost, looks identical, and frankly may even be better made. But to your point, Gibson has demonstrated that it is not a company of innovation. That's cultural, not simply a decision to do something different.

Yes. But the company has sold its name for many generations of ownership. It is now deep in the culture. I suspect Gibson will be purchased by a bigger fish and paced in its portfolio.

Actually may I provide a counterpoint? It doesn't. The number of Gibson necks, cracked, which I've repaired is astounding. That neck design has been there for what ... 66 years. No changes. Adopted by other models throughout. Still breaks. 66 years and impact to sales? Not much I'd argue, as the LP, Epi LP, ESxxx, SG, and have sold throughout. How hard is this to fix? But they haven't. Go figure. I would have. But I'm not so sure how much quality matters by demonstration.

I've been through Memphis many times. Guitar "factories" have factory workers, not luthiers as a general point. There are exceptions. On one of the tours, I asked if they rotate their people through the positions (my thinking, keeps the engaged employees learning, they learn the whole manufacturing product, etc). The answer was "no". I kid you not. "No." The most skilled factory job in the plant ... and this should give perspective ... is scraping the color off the binding. Six weeks of training for that job. Now the restoration shop has people more broadly trained as a matter of what they do, but that's a small number of folks. It is certainly laudable to hire people in need of work. I'm just saying that at Gibson, there are factory workers, not luthiers.


Ding. Ding. Ding.


I think it is time for someone to buy the company for what its value is - brand value. Let it do what it does and make money in a portfolio, and maybe have synergies in that portfolio.


They can't do that, Chris. It requires innovation. Look at the company and what it does - its core competency. It's not that, and Gibson has proven that without a doubt. As you've pointed out, you've read everything there is about the company. I'm sure you know this. It is wishful thinking ... I'd love to see that too! But not in the DNA.


Back to brand value. Yep.


Agree 100%. It will work out fine because the value there is the brand value. And someone will exploit that for money (that's what business is about). My guess is that solution lies in a purchase by a bigger fish that can provide stability and, instead of trying to make Gibson something it is not (that's what Henry tried to do with all the buys, as you well pointed out). In a portfolio, the more stable thing exists (that's the portfolio) and Gibson can be leveraged in the portfolio to provide the value it has clearly shown it has had for the last 50 years.

Good posts, guys!

Andy

His cheese has slid off the cracker LOL not heard that one before.

What a shame. Kind of like the same thing with Sears, when iconic brands die due to the poor vision of one at the top.

Group buy?

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Pat

well, Gibson's been heading for the cliff for a long time. let's see what happens.

OMG! does this mean an end to unnecessary new les paul and sg variants every fkn month? what will we do?

Well, we won't be repairing as many headstocks that's for sure!

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"I've been had again"
Tim Benware
Creedmoor, NC

@AndyB...

I think your description of quality control as pertains to headstock breakage is misused...that's just a bad design they refuse to modify...bad quality control is like the Les Paul I viewed at GC a few years back where I could see more than 1/32" of out of parallel between the neck and the body (it was tight at the bottom of the heel and open below the fretboard) filled with whatever...sure, the neck is actually supported by the tenon, but seriously????

as to where Gibson will go in the future is a craps shoot...they ARE an iconic part of the cult of guitar and I would be amazed if they just disappeared...there is so much value in the brand name, with the caveat that someone steps up and goes back to the basics (in other words QUALITY spelled with a Q and not a K)

Henry responds to all the bad press..... He sounds like a politician.....

http://mmrmagazine.com/6451-debt-troubl ... ibson.html

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Henry is an idiot.

That is why he “earns” by Wednesday what his most senior factory makes in a year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Stockholders are ready to kick Henry to the curb....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ing-rescue

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Executive compensation always seems to look disproportionate to my eyes, but male wages in the US have been flat since the early 1970's, due to uncontrolled access to the US labor market by low/no skill workers, flight of much of the manufacturing sector offshore, aggressive mid- and high-skill hiring from outside the country (e.g., H1/2B/etc. replacement workers), and the huge increases in worker productivity that we have seen across most industries through the 1980-2005 time frame.

While CEO Mr. Henry Juszkiewicz may be the poster child for both poorly planned acquisitions diluting corporate value and how not to run a business, even slow growth in upper management wages can generate the sort of disparities we see in pay - and make for dramatic headlines to redirect our focus from the real issue....not CEO compensation, but instead, the fact that worker wages have been stagnant for nearly 50 years as a result of public policy.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

One thing that I can't find any information on is what is happening with Gibson Acoustic in Bozeman. I live just a few miles away and there is no "word on the street" about them. Granted, I am not plugged in with that community very well, but there news travels pretty fast around here. They used to be hiring all the time, and I haven't seen anything from them in quite a while.

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

You have a way with words. Very good analysis. Here is to hoping you are right.

From what I saw in my repair days QC was always a problem for Gibson. When the Kalamazoo businessmen bought the name and design rights their intent seems to have been to make instruments the way Ford made cars, and make tehmselves a bundle in the process. The idea was that the only person in the place who needed to know about the product was the person who designed it; otherwise they'd use semi-skilled labor.

All the Gibsons I've seen show a maddening lack of consistency. One instrument might be really good, and the next one off the line could be junk. Some design elements have little safety factor built in, so that any slop in the work or lower-than-average material quality invites failure. Since wood is so variable, and the workers had no real reason to care, lots of poor work slipped by.

An article I saw in a trade publication when the current group took over from Norlin indicated that they were going to try to get that under control, but there seems to have been no real effort to do so. Instead they have been coasting on the image and marketing position they inherited. During an era when boutique shops and advancements in manufacturing precision and QC have raised the bar they kept making the same old mistakes, advancing slowly at best.

Martin suffered from some of the same issues of unwise diversification and lack of focus until CFM IV took over. One hopes that Gibson can make a similar comeback as a US made line of instruments. The name and designs are still worth a lot, if new management can just learn the lesson that no past group seems to have embraced.

"Martin suffered from some of the same issues of unwise diversification and lack of focus until CFM IV took over"

Even as a college kid Chris Martin IV seemed to take a lot of pride in his company, and having the right group of people around him helped a lot I'm sure.

A lot of "good" companies have bit the dust - the original Epiphone, Washburn, Stella, Prairie State, Regal and a number of others. It could happen to Gibson. If they are bought and sold the next incarnation may truly put the Chibson in the Gibson.