Run Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Yesterday I went to a big music store (Long & McQuade) just to try some acoustics and doing that, helping a young man to buy his first acoustic with not more than $300.00 to spend. I own a nice and very good sounding Songwriter Deluxe Studio EC with ebony bridge and fingerboard, a DX1E Martin and a Takamine 12 strings so I was not there to buy. When helping this young man, I tried a lot of guitars telling him what to consider even buying a low price one. Gibsons: there were three J-45 two with traces of glue at the base of the bridge !!! and sounding...well...not acording to my taste. The only Gibs I found sounding good were a SJ-200 standard and a Songwriter Deluxe Studio , most of Taylors were good and some Martins too. After trying Epiphones models, and some other cheap ones I finally found a Yamaha model at $253.00 with solid spruce top easy to play well balanced and sounding very good. So I told the guy to listen to the sounds of some very priced guitars and compare. Finally he bought the Yamaha and was very gratefull. I discussed with the store owner about these Gibson models with traces of glue at the base of the bridge and he told me that there are some communications problems at Gibson factory and that some people are observing some declining quality in some of their products...open to discussions...don't know if the guy is right at some point... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparquelito Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 You are a true gentleman, Run. Helping young people getting in to music is a fantastic thing, but helping them to find a really good, playable instrument is even better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modoc_333 Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 similar points discussed in another thread. see my post around #47. http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/122298-is-there-a-reason-to-worry-about-gibson/page__p__1663658__fromsearch__1#entry1663658 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JuanCarlosVejar Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 we can't know if it came like that from the factory or if the dealer took poor care of it. Perhaps Doug (Who works at L&M) can tell us about this He was recently at the montana facility and made a post about it : http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/122937-my-personal-bozeman-tour/ JC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-1854Me Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Trouble is, if it's a an L&M store, the guitar gets shipped from Bozeman to Yorkville Music, who is the Canadian distributor for Gibson. As I understand it, ANY Gibson dealer in Canada gets their stock from Yorkville, so the 'direct conduit' between dealer and Gibson has an intermediary to go through. I was recently at an L&M dealer where they had a 2011 Gibson and it was marked with a 2015 price, courtesy of Yorkville. I pointed out to the sales rep that he had a fairly Old Stock guitar with a fairly New Stock price on it. The response was, "Well that's how we get 'em from Yorkville...". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Try as hard as I may I cannot figure out how time in transit, stop overs, or time sitting in a store would result in a glue line or smear around the bridge. In the immortal words of a TV robot - Does not compute. I would expect this kind of stuff slips through the cracks with all mass produced guitars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drathbun Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I can't comment on the OP's issue with those particular Gibson acoustics as I work at the Calgary L&M, not in Quebec. L&M is the Canadian distributor for Gibson guitars. Guitars are received in Pickering, Ontario and are unboxed and given a quality check. That is every instrument. Even though they go through QC before leaving a Gibson factory, L&M does a second QC. If the guitar has blemishes or issues, it is marked B stock or repaired and then marked B stock and reduced in price. When our store receives stock, we check them out very carefully when unboxing them for display. If there are issues that make the instrument unplayable (or rarer still) unfixable, they are returned to our head office. I've only personally found one Gibson acoustic that had a major issue in my 14 months here. That guitar had a neck angle issue and was returned to our head office. Glue around the edge of a bridge on an acoustic would be unusual. I've seen issues with a high fret, sticky truss rod or faulty tuner here and there but never anything like that. I can say with confidence that Gibson acoustics are some of the best sounding acoustic guitars we sell. I recommend them wholeheartedly and not just as a salesperson but as an owner. Seeing the careful hand work and personal attention that each individual acoustic gets in the plant at Bozeman just reinforced my long held belief that Gibson (Bozeman) Acoustics are high quality, professional grade guitars. I'll quarrel 'till the sun goes down about pre-Bozeman acoustics but that's another few dozen threads. The other thing I'd mention about the guitars the OP was testing... check the strings. These guitars hang in humidified rooms for weeks and sometimes months. We're pretty good about getting to the dead strings and changing them, but we are a large store. Smaller stores might not have the staff to change the strings regularly. I personally changed the strings on three J45's and a Keb Mo last week - badly needed. And those guitars came back from the dead! I sold the Keb Mo yesterday. Fine fine instrument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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