Who bought a Peach R8

SRich

merlin said:

I regret selling mine. I also regret selling an R6. 

But then again, too few to mention..............

tomajoha

HerbieTheRadDorklift said:

Even if they were B Stock I bet they're pretty neat.

There were some nice ones in the deal, good weights, finishes and QC . They had the nice neck carve with some of the historic features inherited from the True Historic series. But I saw alot of duds (finish issues, gap in neck tenons, dodgy grain filling jobs), more so than Gibson's typical output of dud-to-gems.

Gibson was having a cashflow issue at the time and so it adopted a pile 'em high sell 'em cheap strategy. I'm guessing they either had a pile of B-stocks or just speeded up production/number at the time so the quality dipped.

My advice if you see one for sale, is ask the seller to pop the neck pup and send an image of the neck join it's usaully clear from the under hood if it was a rush job. Otherwise if you get a good one at similar prices to what people paid in the blowout its still a great deal.

HerbieTheRadDorklift

I bought a G0 for £2k years ago and sold it for £2k a few years after :shrug:

Adamski

Still got mine, will never sell it. It’s got a bit of sun damage now so it looks even cooler. 

hyperben

+1 @tomajoha ;

liamon

2018 Gibsons are the next “good wood” era. 

terada

tomajoha said:

HerbieTheRadDorklift said:

Even if they were B Stock I bet they're pretty neat.

There were some nice ones in the deal, good weights, finishes and QC . They had the nice neck carve with some of the historic features inherited from the True Historic series. But I saw alot of duds (finish issues, gap in neck tenons, dodgy grain filling jobs), more so than Gibson's typical output of dud-to-gems.

Gibson was having a cashflow issue at the time and so it adopted a pile 'em high sell 'em cheap strategy. I'm guessing they either had a pile of B-stocks or just speeded up production/number at the time so the quality dipped.

My advice if you see one for sale, is ask the seller to pop the neck pup and send an image of the neck join it's usaully clear from the under hood if it was a rush job. Otherwise if you get a good one at similar prices to what people paid in the blowout its still a great deal.

I can completely understand this rationale, but having played one or two  it doesn't correlate to my experience.

more importantly, your guesses aren't correct, and as these things have a tendency to become lore once out there probably best to just put potential future rumours to bed.

Just to clarify a couple of things. While you are spot on about Gibson's financial issues, these were neither B stock or made as a rush job. For the former, to be B stock would they would all need to be B stock, clearly from just the users here there were lots that were perfect.

Secondly, the issues you mention are not unique to this line, and of the ones that went through my hands there was no difference in the likelihood of issues to those of prior years. In fact, after the frenzy I also looked at a number of 2018 models, and the issue rate was similar - in fact if anything I'd say the proportion of issues was a bit higher, but my sample is a lot smaller than for 2017s.

This also doesn't correlate to why they were not available in all markets.

Next, the idea that they were quickly made to get cash in the door is also incorrect, they were not a rush job in 2018, but made steadily per usual throughout the whole of 2017. They then sat in a warehouse for (depending on manufacture date) up to over a year.

What actually happened is much simpler. Gibson filed for bankruptcy in spring 2018. Under lenders management the immediate need was to liquidate stagnant stock. Gibson Europe had a fair amount of stock of high value instruments and were instructed to sell them at a price that would guarantee they all sold quickly. Within 2 months dealers were notified and the deal was done. All standard practice.

The unique circumstances of Gibson's bankruptcy meant that for a very brief period, you could get very expensive guitars at much lower than usual prices. Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time.  

terada

With that said, how about some pics 

mort

+1 @terada ;

tomajoha

Gibson knew they needed to produce a pile of cash for their creditors by Jan 2018 I presume they upped production numbers/speed around this point to build enough guitars to generate cashflow, this date was subsequently brought forward to may 2017. 

By mid-2017 the rumours already started swirling about a stash of 500-700 custom shop guitars that gibson had amassed and couldnt shift having put onerous stock purchasing requirements that lead some US dealers to walk away .

At the same time they pissed off the entire Custom Shop oufit culminating in sacking mastermind Edwin along with 10 other staff.

Some of the stash made its way to europe (japan also) whihc became the first raft of the 2018 blowout, stock was subsequently replenished from the US when us Fretboarders hoovered them up.

@terada you seem to have been lucky in dodging the duffers especially given the number you had, maybe your high hit rate caem from the fact you bought from good delaers with high standards when accepting stock (Peach/Coda etc).

 I saw and played at least 5 at the time which had stupid build issues, i then repeatedly saw them crop up in classifieds as the issue where often very easy to spot. I can only assume this was caused by low morale at the CS and high production numbers to drive revenue.

I am not out to get these guitars or suggest anyone who owns one is playing a lemon. It was a very weird time and I'm sure never to be repeated,  but the fact reason it was a hard-nosed reaction by gibson in Henry's dying days at the company that had an noticeable impact on some of their output. Some got lucky, some didnt!

PS I agree with 2018s, happily i've seen alot of good 19/20/21 guitars from the custom shop.

Brize

tomajoha said:

PS I agree with 2018s, happily i've seen alot of good 19/20/21 guitars from the custom shop.

And I've seen a lot of poor ones.

In my experience, barring the issue of the gap between the neck and the neck pickup ring, which was a stupid design choice, the blowout R8 run is no more or less likely to have QC issues than any other recent Gibson Custom Shop guitar.

hollywoodrox

terada said:

With that said, how about some pics 

Holy cow , those are beautiful ,I can barely contemplate such awesomeness 

Jonathanthomas83

tomajoha said:

 I saw and played at least 5 at the time which had stupid build issues, i then repeatedly saw them crop up in classifieds as the issue where often very easy to spot. I can only assume this was caused by low morale at the CS and high production numbers to drive revenue.

@tomajoha what are the issues?

tomajoha

First and foremost some really crappy neck joins - you could fit a fag end down the tenon gaps.

The rest were mostly cosmetic: crap binding scraping, massive pore holes/ grain sink like they’d forgotten the sealer, more orange peel than half time at your local Sunday league football club etc etc 

Brize

tomajoha said:

crap binding scraping

That describes about a third of the Custom Shop's entire output.

Brize

Here are some recent examples of the Custom Shop's workmanship:

Excessive string spacing on a 1275:



Sloppy pickguard placement on a 57 TV Model:



Child-like scraping on the same '57 TV Model:



Overcut binding channel on a '57 Custom:



Incorrect angle on an ABR post on a different 57 Custom, making the guitar impossible to intonate without flipping saddles (because the bridge was too far back): 

tomajoha

Eeek theres some nasty stuff there ,any idea how recent?

Brize

tomajoha said:

Eeek theres some nasty stuff there ,any idea how recent?

The 1275 is 2018, the first Custom is 2019, the TV Model is 2020 and the second Custom is 2021.

Edit: Gibson sent me a replacement bridge for the 1275, correctly notched; I returned the TV Model and the first Custom; and the second Custom is otherwise such a good guitar that, through gritted teeth, I sent it to @FelineGuitars to have the ABR post re-drilled at the correct angle.

tomajoha

Thanks for sharing @brize I’m glad you’ve got a way forward on two of them - it would seem Gibson QC is doing what it does best

terada

tomajoha said:

Eeek theres some nasty stuff there ,any idea how recent?

Honestly mate, this rabbit hole is rather deep . Gibson is the guitar industry's punchbag, and some would say with good reason. Pick any year and you'll find countless threads about their QC. 

The thing is that (especially on MLP), there were a lot of fanciful rumours going around back in 2017 as Gibson didn't officially announce any 2017 CS Rx guitars as they usually would. All those rumours are now just that, as the facts of the situation came to light.

Gibson went bankrupt and they tried to turn as much inventory into cash as they could.

Like I said, liquidating stock is really standard practice in a bankruptcy situation.

The disappointment for me is that the thread that celebrated how great these were, and was filled with the real reactions of loads of members genuinely receiving dream instruments, has been replaced by a thread that seems drawn to an underserved negative place, especially when you consider the over 5k (almost exclusively) positive responses previously.

That said I understand that getting over 5k unwanted notifications is enough to turn anyone off them