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Gibson Quality
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As prices go ever higher people might start looking elsewhere, they'll get something better for much less imo.
(formerly customkits)
Gotta love a conspiracy theory :-)
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
To my mind, until they fix their operating culture they will always fall foul to these periods of shocking quality and customer experience.
I bought one of the 2015 ones when they went on sale for ridiculously low prices (I think I paid in the region of £370 for a Les Paul Special Doublecut with hardcase), and while it had some minor QC issues that I've never seen on a Fender for example (the binding hadn't been well scraped or the binding channel routed slightly too deep and left a "step" you could feel between it and the paint colour in places on the neck) it was much better than the guitar in the video.
My Derek Trucks SG was literally faultless when I bought it too.
Thank you — I've been trying hard to make my comments sound balanced, and not like I'm trying to give Gibson (or any company) a free pass.
I thought I'd been quite transparent. My posts on page 3 probably sum up everything I think on the subject.
I have said I won't accuse the guy of lying. I don't know him, and that would be grossly unfair of me.
That doesn't mean he therefore is telling the truth. It means I can't confirm or deny his claims, so I'm neutral on them. The rest of the conversation has been general discussion to try and decide how robust his claims are, and the likelihood of what he's saying being exactly what happened.
There are a few problems in his story that give me pause for thought. In addition to those problems is my own experience with Gibson, which couldn't be any further away from this guy's. And in further addition, this is somebody that appears to be an unknown quantity, and he has provided exactly zero proof. So my conclusion is rather neutral: his experience is his own, mine is my own, and he hasn't given me enough evidence to think I need to avoid Gibson in future. To repeat the question I asked earlier, why would I believe everything he said at face value? Because that's what is being suggested isn't it — "here's a stranger, he's got a barren YouTube channel and is posting a guitar video on his business profile, but there can't be any self-interest at play so don't worry. Anyway he's got a story with some eyebrow-raising claims, and no proof for any of them, but you shouldn't have any problems believing that story."
Let's take a devil's advocate approach to this, like we used to have to do for debate class in school. If you rewatch the video with a critical eye you'll notice that the camera doesn't zoom in onto the flaws, so we never even see that those flaws are on a Gibson. How do we know the photos are his? How do we know they're from one guitar, let alone the specific one he's holding? How do we know it's a new guitar — Goldtop 50s Standards aren't new releases for 2024? How do we know it's from Gibson? How do we know he played half a dozen others in the shop and they were all bad? How do we know he's not a disgruntled ex-employee, or the husband/father/uncle/brother of a disgruntled ex-employee, and he's trying to take a shot at Gibson? How do we know that he isn't going to announce his own guitar brand next week to his newfound audience of guitar players who are annoyed at Gibson?
There's one answer to all of those questions: we don't.
So, no. Excuse me but I won't start throwing anger towards a company on the back of a stranger's unsubstantiated claims, especially when they run counter to my own observances over a prolonged period of time and have multiple snags that question the honesty of the story. (And the paragraph above is just hypotheticals to hammer the point that we don't know anything for sure, not an accusation that he genuinely is disgruntled and lying. I don't know, you don't know, nobody but Linny knows, so we could give Gibson the benefit of the doubt until we get an update.)
It sounds as though you've never come across a poor quality Gibson - which is entirely feasible, remember there's a massive difference between poor quality control and poor quality!
FWIW, here's another story from a guy on the internet (me). I bought an SG from Thomann in 2016, it was the most expensive model in the SG range that year (so not a cheap budget guitar). It had multiple flaws, the worst of which was glue on the fretboard. Thomann were helpful, offering a return & refund, or an exchange, but they warned that their stock may not be any better than the one sent to me (make of that what you will). Not wanting to take a chance on something worse, I dealt with Gibson Europe (who were pretty crap initially, but woke up a bit when they saw the photos I sent). They arranged for an approved luthier to rectify all the defects. But it was poor QC that let that SG leave the factory, rather than being sorted first.
So yes, crap Gibsons exist in the wild, and also you can end up dealing directly with Gibson to try to resolve issues. Here's the fretboard photo, the issue extended over more than this length:
"But we do know one important fact about the guitar's history: It was sent by Gibson as a replacement for a guitar bought new from a store. The guy is saying he doesn't think it's 'new' because he thinks Gibson chucked a return at him... But it's still all about Gibson's QC; as far as Gibson were concerned it was meant to be a new guitar."
We don't know this though. That's what the guy in the video has told us, but we don't know it's true.
"I dealt with Gibson Europe (who were pretty crap initially, but woke up a bit when they saw the photos I sent). They arranged for an approved luthier to rectify all the defects"
Can you tell us more about this? You contacted Gibson directly, and they gave you an approved luthier? That would seem to still be significantly different to this video, but if I'm wrong that Gibson sends people through their dealership network then I am happy to stand corrected.
You've been arguing that the guy says it's not new, therefore it can't be taken as an example of a new Gibson. Whereas the guy is actually saying Gibson sent a replacement 'new' guitar that doesn't seem to be new (plastic removed from scratch plate, etc.), as such it is representative of a new Gibson (from Gibson''s perspective). But now you're saying he's a liar...
"Can you tell us more about this? You contacted Gibson directly, and they gave you an approved luthier? That would seem to still be significantly different to this video..."
Yes and yes. In my situation Gibson Europe didn't have any more of these guitars to ship (it was a limited run), so there was no option to have Gibson send me anything. The eventual choices were: Return & refund from dealer, Exchange from dealer (with the dealer not optimistic about that option working out well), Gibson pay an approved luthier to do what they should've done at the factory. I think it would've been feasible for Gibson to take responsibility and send a non-defective guitar if they'd been in stock, that would've been cheaper than delivery to luthier, pay luthier, and delivery to me.
I have two mij tokais that tick those boxes, and even if I sold both of them I couldn't afford one of those authentic guitars.
Fact of the matter is, certain people want a guitar with Gibson on the headstock. So they can produce as much junk as they want. That les paul is still profitable product.
PRS are known for being immaculately built, its part and parcel of the brand.
You shouldnt charge premium prices and then deliver inferior goods.
Anyone who has ever worked in warehousing knows that this is perfectly normal for many companies. Common as mud. It doesn't happen in well-run companies, of course, but we have no grounds for thinking Gibson is well run, and every reason to expect this sort of screw-up.
It works like this.
Bloggs is in charge of the returns section of the warehouse. Bloggs is overworked (because the bean counters think "returns is not profitable core business, cutting its budget is good management" and they don't give him enough staff, not do they give him enough space). So Bloggs has too much work, not enough staff, and is under-resourced. His department is a mess for those reasons, and also because Bloggs is not the sharpest knife in the drawer - that's why he ended up getting shunted into returns in the first place. (Warehouses always put the least-productive worker into returns, it gets him or her out of the way of the mainstream team and makes him less annoying.)
Bloggs' performance reviews centre on how many items he has in his section of the warehouse. If Bloggs can ship stuff out fast enough - supposedly fixed and returned to as-new condition - he gets an uptick on his performance review and - just maybe but don't hold your breath - a promotion out of the returns department, which is of course a career dead-end.
Bloggs has ever reason to cut corners. He sometimes (in the worst-run places, often) ships stuff out which is still faulty, either because he hasn't tested it properly (he is overworked and under-resourced, so nothing gets done properly) or sometimes because he hopes the customer won't notice. Either way it clears his desk, at least for a few weeks, and does no harm (to Bloggs). Either the customer returns it again (leaving Bloggs no worse off than he started), or doesn't notice the new, different fault because the first fault on the original item is fixed (you'd be amazed what people miss!) or else he just gives up and keeps the faulty item because he is sick of hanging around on the telephone getting RMA numbers and packing stuff off. (This is a win for Bloggs. One less to worry about!)
Do you think this is cynical? Then you have not worked in warehousing. (Or, just possibly, worked in warehousing but for a very good company which gets returns right. Lucky you!)
Trust me, this is exactly how it works. I worked as a storeman, later on (after taking time out to go to university) in warehouse management, and after that spent 25 years in retail, dealing with return departments regularly. (Well, actually delegating most of that to - you guessed it - to the staff member least likely to be productive in other roles. Slow, reliable plodders do returns best. Quick-witted, active workers get frustrated and screw it up.)
In these days of Internet retail, returns must be a far bigger problem than they were even in my day. Managing returns well always used to be the mark of a quality company. I dare say it still is.
That's not quite right. I haven't said he's a liar, I've said I don't (yet) find the story convincing. Nor have I said the guitar was not sent as new, and if it was then of course blame is with Gibson. The "new/not new" thing is important, as I see it, because there is a difference between a guitar that leaves the factory in that condition and a guitar that has been mis-treated subsequently.
So yes, 100% Gibson's fault if they sent him that guitar. But no, not necessarily indicative of Gibson's QC of what leaves the factory. I'm only honing in on this because it was explicitly stated in the video, by the way. I've not waded in to say "well hold on guys, maybe this guitar isn't new." The guy looked in the camera and told us he doesn't know what it was but it has clear signs of not being brand new.
Ok but compare what you've just said to what Linny said: Gibson offered you an exchange through the dealer. That's exactly what happened to me too. Linny is saying that he took his dealer-purchased guitar then bypassed the dealer to get multiple exchanges from Gibson directly. I'm not saying he's lying, I'm saying this is the opposite of what I've ever heard about Gibson's policy and until more details are given, I can't take it at face value.
I see this all the time on my own headstocks and it was my first thought. But I'm not sure - look at the left side of the truss rod cover as we see it, between the B and G strings, it looks like the white is smudged. Likewise the edge of the headstock past the high E string, those white marks look thick like paint drops.
It's possible it's just zoomed in more I guess, but it doesn't look quite like the dust particles that I've seen in my own photos.