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I'm relaying information I got from sources inside Gibson who were in positions where they could have known this sort of thing. But take it with a grain of salt, not as gospel. -- Bob R

Red basically told you the history: Gibson bought Garrison to keep it out of bankruptcy and tried to manufacture a "budget line", but failed to make a go of it. The basic problem was that building a better-than-Epiphone quality guitar in Canada at the $1K "budget line" price point couldn't be done in the Garrison plant. Gibson significantly underestimated labor costs -- underestimating both the wage levels that would be required to hire and retain skilled woodworkers and the number of hours those workers would need to build a b-t-E quality guitar in the Garrison plant -- at the time of the purchase, and it doesn't take much of a difference in labor cost to turn a profitable instrument manufacturing operation into one that loses money hand-over-fist. Gibson already had some experience building guitars at that price point that cost more to produce than they sold for -- the Bozeman-built Working Man series -- so they recognized the problem and shut the plant down fairly quickly. -- Bob R

Oops! Thanks, -- Bob R

I'm not sure he could help. Here's the story of how it was acquired, from Bryan Kimsey [slightly edited by Yours Truly]: -- Bob R

The effects of having an enlarged sound hole are controversial. In theory, it raises the Helmholtz resonance of the box (by a semitone or two), and thus enhances the mids and trebles. That would help explain the popularity of this mod for bluegrass, as enhanced mids and trebles equates to more cut when playing in an ensemble. But that's not what some people report hearing. Some claim to hear more bass, exactly the opposite of what theory predicts. Plus, a lot of fans of the large sound hole (luthier Bryan Kinsey, for example) like them because they feel it changes projection -- more spread out, rather than sharply focused in front -- not the tone. In particular, the player can hear the guitar better. (Which might explain why some dread players report that the change made their guitar bassier.) My only guitar with a large sound hole definitely has stronger mids than its nearest small sound-holed cousins -- which is good, because that's why the guy who choose the specs went with a large sound hole -- but this isn't a model for which there is an exact small sound hole counterpart. By the way, part of the reason the fretboard sticks out so far on the CW/TR D-28 is that the original fretboard was swapped for a longer Guild Gretsch [correction courtesy JT] fretboard back when Clarence owned it. (That poor ol' guitar has been through a lot!) Tony thinks that the extended fretboard partially mitigates that effects of the larger sound hole, and also that the larger sound hole doesn't make much difference in the first place. Like I said, it's controversial. -- Bob R

It's interesting -- I read "By using a multi-ply, arched back, ... to the customer" quite differently, as saying that the laminated back was selected as means of getting a desired tonal improvement (viz., "deep-sounding") over what use of a flat back would produce because it was inexpensive compared to other means of getting the tonal improvement, not because it was inexpensive relative to a flat back. In other words, that the object was to produce a relatively inexpensive "deep-sounding" guitar, not to reduce the cost relative to a hypothetical flat-backed Gospel reissue. And so it seemed to me that this just tends to confirm my suspicion that maybe the back was used to improve the tone of the Gospel, while holding down cost, rather than as a cost-cutting measure. I bet we've put more thought into this now than Gibson did when making the decision! -- Bob R

True. But not significantly cheaper than a flat back which was the claim I was responding to. -- Bob R Added later: D'oh!! I forgot my own original point! Which was ... Even if they do cost less than a flat back, it doesn't follow that they were used because they cost less. Obviously, there was some other motive in the case of the J-190. So maybe there was some other motive in the case of the Gospel too.

I don't think that the laminated arched back story is quite that simple. I have a Gibson J-190, which is basically an upgraded J-185EC -- the top of the Gibson acoustic/electric line in the early 'aughts -- that has a laminated arched back, so this wasn't just a cost-cutting measure. In the case of the J-190, I believe the idea was to get a more classic jazz guitar tone when playing through the mag pickup. No question that it affects the acoustic tone, but, in my opinion, for the better. -- Bob R