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Fuller's Guitar No Longer A Gibson Dealer


thegreatgumbino

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Sorry if I missed this, but a search turned up nothing. I was talking with the owner of Great Southern Music (Houston), and he mentioned that Fuller's is no longer a Gibson dealer. Sure enough, I checked Gibson's website and they are no longer listed. Called Fuller's and they confirmed they are no longer carrying them. Eric said, "We needed a break". With all the news of Gibson making life difficult for dealers, sounds more like a "breakup". I'm shocked and saddened by this. They had the best selection of Gibson guitars in town bar none. Really bummed that their won't be any more Fuller's custom reissues coming out.

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I was wondering about that.

 

 

I had sent them an email about ordering something and have not recieved a reply.

This would explain why.

 

 

I will continue to support Fuller's by purchasing other brands

 

 

JC

 

I will as well. Great folks and a great shop. Really sad to see this. Pure speculation, but makes me wonder with all the Gibson debt talk if they are pushing their dealers to take on more inventory to increase their profits and Fuller's wasn't ready to do that.

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That's a real shame. Their special-run re-issues really were special. I have one of those, designated as a "1943 Southern Jumbo", and it's a great guitar with largely authentic characteristics that are sometimes missing in Gibson's standard "re-issues".

 

Fuller's was very helpful when I called them about some of the specifications of my guitar, even though I had bought the guitar used from a dealer in California.

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Wow.... that's a drag!

 

I've bought a number of Gibsons from Mike and Jeremy Fuller and their staff. I remember crawling through the attic over Mike's office one time looking through his SJ re-issues -- what fun!

 

So -- (long time ago) Elderly, (more recently) Dave's and now Fuller's -- no longer dealers.

 

Too bad....

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We just met Mike Fuller last month for the first time. My daughter lives in Houston, and we have a new "grandson outpost" there -- a backyard apartment in my daughter's new house. It is rented until August, so we take possession then.

 

I have hung out in Houston quite a lot in my life -- besides daughter, I worked a lot with Texas Instruments and Rice, so I was there a lot. I use to shop for vintage instruments there and I was there enough so I joined the Bay Area Bluegrass Association (BABA) and found places to jam while in town. Also my daughter has a Hazel-Alice type duo she plays with there called Dead Girl Songs. We play some with that band outside of Texas -- now we plan to play inside Texas.

 

Here is what they sound like Dead Girl Songs. (Guitar content: The guitars are a 44 J-45, 35 Jumbo, and a 37 D-18.)

 

So while house hunting, we visited Fuller Vintage Guitar. Well they had a 1939 S-51 Kay 5- string bass. Now my wife already has two 1939 S-51s -- she loves them -- but the two she has are not in the same city -- in fact not even in the same country. It seemed like if we are going to have a musical outpost in Houston, my wife clearly needs a 1939 S-51 in Houston. I mean you can't put a double bass in an overhead binmsp_confused.gif!

 

Well it tuns out that was Mike Fuller's personal S-51 -- played it many years in a bluegrass band. He started as a folkie, played bluegrass a lot, sings tenor ("the girlie part") and he is really into vintage instruments, particularly Gibsons. Hmmmmm?

 

So we bought the bass before a house was found. Turned out a house was bought soon there after -- important because there was no place to store the bass.

 

(Almost certainly my wife now has the largest collection of 1939 Kay S-51 double basses in the world?) Nothing is too good for wife who does music.

 

Long story short, Mike Fuller is going to show us around Houston and play some music with us too I hope.

 

I found him incredibly nice and an impressive expert. It is really nice to know he is very highly regarded -- he seems like a jewel.biggrin.gif

 

Best,

 

-Tom

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Yes, I noticed Fuller's had parted ways with Gibson about a month ago, while searching for a J-50.

 

Ended up purchasing a NOS J-50 from Rainbow Guitars in Tucson. Had a very positive buying experience, with excellent communication & shipping. I will readily consider buying from them again in the future if the right guitar comes along - but it won't be a new Gibson, because they too have dropped the brand.

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Dave's Guitar Shop went through this last year. That is a great store but they could not deal with Gibson's demands so they ended up parting ways. Jim Baggett and Mass Street Music are still authorized dealers so if it should ever come to me scoring a new Gibson (unlikely but never say never) I would go to them.

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Several former Gibson dealers within striking distance of me have stopped working with them in the last year. Even Manson’s in Exeter who are an authorised Gibson repair shop as well as retailer have barely any acoustics in stock anymore. It’s really frustrating, and as I’m not one for shopping online and buying blind, it really pushes me towards the secondhand market, along with the rather steep U.K. prices for new Gibson acoustics.

 

It’s a real shame. I don’t often have spare moolah to splash on a new guitar, but when I do, I always want it to be a Gibson.

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... So -- (long time ago) Elderly, (more recently) Dave's and now Fuller's -- no longer dealers. ...

 

Over the last few years some have poo-pooed mom & pops dropping Gibson as no big deal - "Too bad, but who cares."

 

Welp, these are not mom & pops. . The snowball is rolling downhill and getting bigger. . I see this continuing. I'm not sure where it will stop. Hopefully when it's over Gibson dealers won't be too few and too far between. . :-s

 

 

.

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I kinda suspected this as far back as last October. Fuller's had no Gibsons on display at the Dallas International Guitar show, despite having probably 500 guitars from other brands there. Usually, the Gibson mobile showrooms are parked right next to the Fuller's display area as well to augment Fuller's sales, but they were not there. Nor was Don Ruffalo present, who assists Gibson customers in the Fuller's area (which makes sense, since Fuller's brought no (new) Gibsons.

 

When I visited the store in November, there were just a paltry number of new acoustics, and maybe even fewer electrics. Very sad. I believe until recently they were Gibson Acoustic's largest dealer.

 

I have a Fuller's Vintage 1939 J-35 Reissue, which is a fantastic guitar. As others have mentioned, the guitars they speced as exclusive models have often been extraordinary. I believe Mike and his team, having dealt with so many vintage models, were able to impart a measure of historical knowledge that Gibson had lost with its move to Bozeman. Not knocking Bozeman in any way, they build very fine guitars and I have more than my fair share, but few if any of their builders had any of the institutional knowledge that would be naturally passed to one generation of worker to another had there been some continuity in personnel or location or tools, jigs, and patterns. They had to back engineer a lot from scratch. I remember being flabbergasted that until they made the Legend J-45, they were unaware that the depth of Gibson headstocks on vintage guitars had been tapered from the top to the neck. This is despite the fact that they labeled various J-45s as "Historic" and "Early" and meticulous recreations. Heck, the Epiphone Masterbilts had this subtle in effect but important feature when they were first released in 2004 (my memory may be wrong about the year).

 

Red 333

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Sorry to hear this. My only surprise is that they hung on long

after Gibson axed there website sales. Indeed the snow ball is getting bigger,

and Henry is at the bottom of the hill waiting to catch it.

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Sorry if I missed this, but a search turned up nothing. I was talking with the owner of Great Southern Music (Houston), and he mentioned that Fuller's is no longer a Gibson dealer. Sure enough, I checked Gibson's website and they are no longer listed. Called Fuller's and they confirmed they are no longer carrying them. Eric said, "We needed a break". With all the news of Gibson making life difficult for dealers, sounds more like a "breakup". I'm shocked and saddened by this. They had the best selection of Gibson guitars in town bar none. Really bummed that their won't be any more Fuller's custom reissues coming out.

 

 

That happened at the beginning of this year in Virginia Beach. Alpha Music has always carried Gibson guitars but they had to stop. It was just as you stated above, Gibson making life difficult for dealers. Too bad.

 

I wonder how things are going with Gibson and Wildwood Guitars in Colorado?

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I will as well. Great folks and a great shop. Really sad to see this. Pure speculation, but makes me wonder with all the Gibson debt talk if they are pushing their dealers to take on more inventory to increase their profits and Fuller's wasn't ready to do that.

 

That is what happened to the store in Virginia Beach, Gibson pushing their dealers to take on more inventory.

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I wonder if Gibson is gonna go to online, only.. if anyone watches Sharktank, that seems to be all that the high powered investors want. To increase profits by for the most part skipping the brick and mortar retail stores That could also maybe explain Fullers saying they are “taking a break”. Could it be they are gearing up for an enhanced online sales approach, in sync with Gibson HQ, Musicians Friend, Sweetwater? Or something similar? It is the next wave in merchandising. Just thinking..,

 

QM aka Jazzman Jeff

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That happened at the beginning of this year in Virginia Beach. Alpha Music has always carried Gibson guitars but they had to stop. It was just as you stated above, Gibson making life difficult for dealers. Too bad.

 

I wonder how things are going with Gibson and Wildwood Guitars in Colorado?

 

I recently bought an AJ from Wildwood which I’m picking up in June (I’m in the U.K. so have to wait until I’m in the US with live work), I look forward to chatting to Bruce and the team about the Gibson situation in the US relative to over here.

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I bought my faded cherry sunburst 1964 J-45 Custom Shop Reissue from Fullers back in 2009. Jeremy Fuller was great to deal with, providing me construction facts, how it differed from Musicians Friends 1960s Iconic J-45 that I was also interested in, etc. etc. I can only hope Fullers gets back into the business of selling new Gibsons.

 

Just my two cents.

 

QM aka Jazzman Jeff

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Gryphon in Palo Alto was for decades a Gibson dealer. They sold a lot of mandolins, archtops, and banjos, mostly the high end instruments. Must have been fifteen years ago Gibson started telling them they had to sell Epiphones to get the L5s they could sell. The boutique guitar builders were coming on strong, and Collings were building very good mandolins so Gryphon parted ways with them. Fast forward to a year or so ago and there they were, ten or twelve Gibsons.

 

I told Frank I thought I'd never see the day. He said neither did we. Six months later, no more Gibsons, so it didn't last.

 

The so called preferred dealer can't get J 45s or J 45 vintages regularly, but they have to take every special edition that comes along. Can't get a regular J 200 either, but they had the Bob Dylan uber expensive one. And this is a place that can actually sell Les Pauls and Epiphone electrics.

 

Hopefully Gibson will get sold off to someone who cares about their history and wants a partnership with their dealers.

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Well that doesn’t apply to Fullers, since they historicall have had tons of limited editions (or custom shop Gibson guitars. That is what they are known for.).

 

I wouldn’t wish for a new owner of Gibson. See other posts. It seems to me most hedgefund owners would likely immediately move all US production to Indonesia or China and slap a Gibson name on an Epiphone made there and then exclaim, “why didn’t anyone before see this is the key to Gibson profitability.” Oy!

 

I don’t want this to happen, but could see it happening if. Hedgefund owner gets into the management role at Gibson.

 

QM aka Jazzman Jeff

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