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2019 Gibson Acoustic Line


JuanCarlosVejar

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Thanks for this JC. I've met Don and he's the nicest guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of acoustic guitars.

 

I'll be interested to see if I can get my hands on one of the beeswax rubbed "sustainable" Gibsons. I like the wood pickguard.

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Thanks for this JC. I've met Don and he's the nicest guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of acoustic guitars.

 

I'll be interested to see if I can get my hands on one of the beeswax rubbed "sustainable" Gibsons. I like the wood pickguard.

 

 

L&M has had a couple of those already..

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Doug,

 

I’ve met him at NAMM and he has always been very gracious.

Don is simply the best.

 

I couldn’t go this year due to other stuff that I have going on but I hope to make it next year.

 

JC

 

I met Don at a Gibson presentation at Calgary L&M. I button-holed him after and told him of my 75th Anniversary Golden Age SJ200 where the label was attached to the certificate (which has his signature on it). So the guitar has no label on it at all. He gave me his card and asked me to email him with the serial number and within a week, I had one in my hands. Outstanding customer service.

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Dang....hand rubbed "bees-wax" on the L-00! Wonder if it melts in the sun?

 

Question to all....the new G-45....is it the J-15 reinvented?

No,

 

The J 15 is still in the line for 2019 that has a 12 inch radiius vs 16 inch radius on the G 45 studio.

 

Remember the neck on the J 15 is Maple .

The G 45 studio will have something different( not sure what it is yet)for neck material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JC

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No,

 

The J 15 is still in the line for 2019 that has a 12 inch radiius vs 16 inch radius on the G 45 studio.

 

Remember the neck on the J 15 is Maple .

The G 45 studio will have something different( not sure what it is yet)for neck material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JC

 

 

Thanks JC

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I will add a bit of reality here. There are some very fundamental issues here and they will need to be addressed and soon.

 

First. Gibson cost averages their acoustic line. The J-45 is the pivot point. That just means this, The J-45 makes no money. It breaks even There is no one in Montana that knows this? The guys that are advising the new guy are doing him a big disservice. Hell it might even be intentional.

 

There is very little difference in the cost of building a guitar. The time it takes to build a J-45 is the very same as the time to make a J-200 so the labor cost is almost the same. The cost in materials is almost the same. Maybe a couple of hundred $$$$ difference.

 

In order to make a J-45 they have to make a J-200 and use the profit to pay for the J-45 to offset the cost. The two average out and the company make a profit. This is done in every industry.

 

Gibson Montana has tried to bring $1,000.00 guitars to the market for years. Every time they got a new GM he tried to make an inexpensive guitar.

1994: The Gospel $1050.00

1994: The Epiphone experiment

1996: The Formula 1&2 experiment

1998: The Working Man series $1099.00

The list goes on.....

 

All of these guitars were wonderful instruments. The CL series comes to mind. Why did they fail?

 

It's very simple. People ordered them by the hundreds because they hit a spot in the market that folks loved. The Gibson name was on them and they had Bozeman quality. The problem was that they were below the price point that they could make money for Montana. They cost more to make than they made. So.... for every one of these guitars Gibson made they lost money and the guitars above the J-45 point sales couldn't keep up.

 

Remember this Montana can make a determined number of instruments a day because of the size of the labor force and the capacity of the physical plant. The new GMs had to take the budget guitars out of the line and try to recover from their mistakes. Usually this was not possible and Montana got a new GM. Then the whole process started all over again. Gibson was going their GMs every two years.

Of course the new folks think they have discovered the answer. They can make $1,000.00 guitars like God makes poor people but they can't keep the doors open and the guys in Montana know this. The guys that are entrenched in Montana are not doing anyone any favors and the new guy is on the same path of failure as the myriad of GMs before him. It's kinda sad to think that no one is telling the new owners how this all works. Keep this in mind. The JC guy does not own the company he just works for them. He thinks he has found the answer to success and he is on the same path as all that went before him. Pitiful. This isn't like the Levis company you can't just tweak a knob and spit out a bunch more production.

 

Henry knew this very well as he had to deal with it his entire tenure. He had a wonderful solution to the problem. It's called Epiphone. Ask yourself a very interesting question. As the new owner of Gibson why would you go into competition with your own company? Epiphone is designed to meet the price point that the general public is clambering for. Why would you put out a guitar that will break one plant when you have another division that makes the exact same price point you are looking for?

 

If you are in management in Montana why would you let the new guy make this very fundamental mistake? The capability of making the $1,000.00 guitar is there in Montana. The capability to make the $1,000.00 profitable is not. This has been the problem all along and if the new company doesn't address this they will have big problems.

 

Insanity. Doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I could go on for hours but you are already tired of me so I will close for now. Oh, One last thing. Bee's wax is insane. These people have no idea what they are doing.

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Hogeye, I suspect you are right on all counts. It is pretty clear that most guitars probably have the about same number of hours in them, +/- the cost of extra ornamentation or a more complex finish. The wood cost difference in most cases is pretty minor as well. All you have to do is go on instrument-building wood supply websites to see that.

 

This is a conundrum with no obvious solution, as long as production remains onshore and the hand-building process remains the norm. I've never figured out how Gibson can make money on most of these guitars.

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Sadly, there is actually an answer and it is the one we do not want to think about. That being have the $1000 Gibson made in the oversees Epiphone plant, replacing the Epiphone Masterbuilt line or duplicating it with a Gibson nameplate. Having low priced Gibsons made overseas or in Mexico in a Gibson supervised plant is the route that Martin has taken as has Martin, Taylor (I think, but I don’t really follow Taylor), Fender, etc. Gibson hasn’t done it to preserve their guitars being made in the US and to not take away from their Epiphone line. I personally hope this approach continues and it may very well do so. There is also a hybrid way, Gibson could produce a lower priced guitar. Further automation like having Epiphone processes replicated in Montana for lower end models. Or, import produced guitar parts assembled in Montana. Or, even Taylor-like bolt on neck features on low end Gibsons. Let’s hope not to these approaches, but it could happen. If it does, let’s hope the J-45s and up stay handcrafted like they are in Montana. Players have learned to differentiate between Nazareth made Martins and their lower end guitars, which are still good, just not as good.

 

The mystery here really is how does JC plan on approaching the Epiphone line. And, is Jim Rosenburg (spelling ?) still the President of Epiphone? There has been a mysterious silence about Epiphone through Gibson’s BK and the present hiercharchy of Epiphone under the new owners.

 

QM aka “Jazzman” Jeff

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Yeah when I first heard that I laughed. Anybody touch a bees wax candle? You want that all over the guitar body? What about if you live in a really hot climate? But according to the YT clip I watched you can just go down and buy some and rub some more on. Laughable.

 

What would really upset me would be if it melted off on my new $60.00 Levis.

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