Black Cloud Over Gibson

[rcc56]

Well, Henry has a history of getting up to his eyeballs in trouble and somehow finding a way to wiggle out.

It doesn't really matter to me, except that the son of some very old friends of mine has been working as an Epiphone inspector for quite a few years. They have never cross-trained him. Until just a few weeks ago-- now he's spending some time in the warehouse and is learning to drive a forklift. He doesn't like that very much, but I told him that it was a good thing. Forklift skills are a meal ticket. If Gibson goes under, at least he will be able to find a job.

As far as learning the craft of instrument repair, he is coming to see me for a day or two every month or so. He looks over my shoulder, and I look over his. He is learning how to pull and replace frets. He's acquiring some of the basic tools. He pays attention, and he's got a good mind. Maybe he'll be able to get a job in another shop, and set up his own repair business later.

His parents were very helpful to me during a difficult period in my life, so I train him for free, almost. He buys me dinner, which is nice for me, and makes him value my training. Sometimes if you give people something that is completely free, they don't take it seriously enough. He can afford the cost of dinner once a month.

I hope he can get his sea legs before his job goes away. If not, the forklift will pay his rent.

As far as Gibson and mandolins are concerned, there are an awful lot of good, even superior instruments being made today. Most of them don't have a Gibson label. If Gibson stops making mandolins, some of us may miss the name, but there will be no shortage of good new mandolins on the market.

Anybody remember how hard it was to find a good mandolin in the '70's and '80's? Until Flatiron came along, the best bet was to try and find an old instrument that could be brought into serviceable shape. Good f-hole mandolins were hard to come by. Don't forget what happened-- Gibson bought Flatiron and slowly downgraded the mandolins.

[Jeff Mando]

About 10 years ago Gibson bought an innovative Canadian company called Garrison, basically to put them out of business. They made a guitar that used a carbon fiber bracing system instead of traditional wooden braces inside. I believe they made mandolins, as well. I've never played one, but I have heard they are decent instruments.

[Ivan Kelsall]

IMO Gibson began pulling the rug from under their own feet many years back, when they stripped many music dealerships of selling Gibson instruments - unless they could sell a 'specific' number per year. That must have damaged their sales in the long term.Even if a store only sold 3 or 4 per year,it was still cash,cash that Gibson lost out on. Of course there's a lot more to the story than that,but it's an example of the short sightedness of Gibson at that time.

Would we be worse off if Gibson collapsed & never made instruments any more ? - Hell yes !!!. Gibson still make amazingly good guitars,& folk still wish to buy them. As for mandolins - my main concern would be for a guy with a terrific reputation as a builder - Dave Harvey. He's overseen the production of some incredible mandolins for Gibson. If Gibson were to fold,as long as DH could find good work building mandolins,i'd maybe not be too concerned,
Ivan

[Tobin]

Ivan, I have a feeling Dave Harvey could easily continue building mandolins under any name he chooses if Gibson were to fold up. He could even start his own mandolin line, just like Bruce Weber did when he left Gibson. Dave Harvey's reputation as a great mandolin builder and all-around good guy will serve him well no matter where he goes.

[MikeEdgerton]

My feeling is that there are a whole lot of people like those mentioned that need their job at Gibson to feed their family and maybe provide for their retirement. I hate to see any company go under even if I don't hold the CEO in the highest regard. After you've had a big old corporation that you work for take a dive and you've watched thousands of people leave your company it does change your perspective a bit. I hope for the best for the employees. The folks on the floor didn't cause this situation.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi Tobin - I've often wondered whey DH hasn't done exactly that already. As you infer,his reputation as a builder is as good as any.

Mike - I totally agree. We have to look deeper at what the folding of Gibson would mean other than the demise of their instruments.
I should have added in my last post ( #53),that my comment re. Dave Harvey & mandolins was purely on the mandolin front. Of course like yourself,i'd be very concerned for the Gibson staff.

Lets hope that the CEO can find a way out of this problem,but with maybe a more rational approach, & with more concern for Gibson's core business - instruments,
Ivan

[dhergert]

Regarding DH, I can understand him staying on until the very end... Gibson is a legacy as well as a company. I can imagine DH takes a lot of pride in his work at Gibson and of being a part of that legacy, and also has a sense of historical continuance regarding all that has happened at Gibson, including the oldest mandolin history as well as the more recent history of bluegrass icons and previous luthiers.

And, considering that Gibson (HJ and all) has uniquely decided to kickstart mandolin production since 2014, maybe there's a similar sense at the administrative top. Maybe because of that Gibson legacy, mandolins will be one of the last sections to be affected by whatever happens to the company. DH may have some assurances of that too. HJ himself has publicly talked about what a small portion of the company the mandolin production is... Maybe because it is so small, Gibson can keep that part going until the very end.

I can understand wanting to be a part of a legacy until it's time to either pick up the pieces elsewhere, or retire.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Long before Gibson guitars became a top favourite,Gibson Mandolins & Banjos were their top sellers amongst the new 'Bluegrass' musicians - they were what Bill Monroe & Earls Scruggs played. I can say that Gibson banjos were still 'the' banjo to strive for many years later,but for some reason,Gibson let the quality slide, & other builders stepped in to make banjos of sufficient quality (& quantity) to fill the gap left by Gibson. Why Gibson did this i don't know. What i do know,is that when i went to pick up my newly ordered Gold Star GF-85 banjo 14 years back (the first in the UK),i played it back to back against a Gibson RB250 & RB75,& the Gold Star sunk 'em both in terms of 'sound' & build quality !. How can that happen unless a company simply doesn't care ?.

To me,that scenario would be like Dave Harvey producing mandolins such as Gibson made in the 1970's - pretty poor instruments.
Why Gibson couldn't have carried on producing top quality banjos,one of their most 'iconic' instruments,i don't know. Suffice to say that it's maybe too late to bring 'em back - but,if Gibson could make banjos again,to their previous pre-war high standard,would they sell simply because of the name ?. Who knows - maybe,maybe not,
Ivan

[Caleb]

My feeling is that there are a whole lot of people like those mentioned that need their job at Gibson to feed their family and maybe provide for their retirement. I hate to see any company go under even if I don't hold the CEO in the highest regard. After you've had a big old corporation that you work for take a dive and you've watched thousands of people leave your company it does change your perspective a bit. I hope for the best for the employees. The folks on the floor didn't cause this situation.

This is what I think of whenever I see a big company in trouble. A lot of people will say Guitar Center, Gibson, or ______ should go out of business. My thought is always, Yeah, easy to say when that isn’t where you get your paycheck.

[Mandolin Cafe]

Don't agree with the statement made in this thread that if Gibson stops producing mandolins that the prices on them will increase due to demand. Really? Which Gibson would we be talking about? The 1920s peak that included Loars, F-2/F-4 line, nice Sheraton brown snakehead and paddleheads, pumpkin colors, sunburst A4s, A Jrs., etc.? The funky, rare 30s and 40s stuff? The largely firewood products of the 60s and 70s that produced such gems as the lump scroll? The 80s and the Gibson F-5L which sit for years unpurchased and grossly overpriced (my opinion)? The stuff of the last 15 years? No, don't think plain vanilla but nice sounding F-9s are suddenly going to rocket in price. Boy, there's an awful lot of great competition that meets and in many cases far exceeds what Gibson is doing minus the Gibson logo on the headstock. And, some of you should really know, plenty of what goes into a Gibson mandolin these days is not produced at Gibson and hasn't been for awhile. Shhhhh.

We'll all be just fine if they meet their demise. I hope they come out on the other side of Henry's epic failure as a businessman, but in the scheme of Gibson, a mandolin is about as close to zero in importance as you can get--only banjos are less important which haven't been manufactured there in years and were largely built by the Sullivans when they were. You don't amass over half a billion debt building mandolins. The sun will still come up every day if they're no more, and there will be more than enough fine instruments to choose from, including plenty of Gibsons from all eras.

[sunburst]

Hi Tobin - I've often wondered whey DH hasn't done exactly that already. As you infer,his reputation as a builder is as good as any.

It could have something to do with this:
Once, at a festival, after examining one of my mandolins, Dave said something like; "If you ever want to move to Nashville..." then he described his benefit package and how he would be able to retire in X-number of years. Why would he leave a job that allows him to travel and play music with bands and supplies a benefit package and retirement to try to forge his own path in luthery like so many others of us?
Building and selling under a well known, established name sure has it's advantages!

[MikeEdgerton]

...Why would he leave a job that allows him to travel and play music with bands and supplies a benefit package and retirement to try to forge his own path in luthery like so many others of us?
Building and selling under a well known, established name sure has it's advantages!

Exactly.

Beyond that, we tend to make the mandolin community bigger than it is but honestly, last years mandolin production in the entire world was probably beat by the number of guitars built in the last hour all over the world. We're a niche market no matter how you look at it.

[MikeEdgerton]

...--only banjos are less important which haven't been manufactured there in years and were largely built by the Sullivans when they were...

And even that wasn't the same after Bill Sullivan died (RIP).

[DHopkins]

,,,we tend to make the mandolin community bigger than it is but honestly, last years mandolin production in the entire world was probably beat by the number of guitars built in the last hour all over the world. We're a niche market no matter how you look at it.

You're right. We don't like to think of it that way but I also think that's the case. Nobody calls a guitar anything but a guitar. On the other hand, how many times have we heard, "What is that?" or "Is that a little guitar?"

[Dale Ludewig]

How many folks know what a stingy brim is? That's probably more than know what a mandolin is.

[Austin Bob]

What saddens me is not the fact that Gibson as we know it will likely go away. What I'm sad for is the for the people who work there. Most of us have seen or experienced the face of layoffs in corporate America in some form or fashion. We know some will lose their houses. Some marriages will not survive the strain. Some may not even be able to face themselves, and seek escape though alcohol, drugs or other means of self destruction.

I have a Gibson guitar and mandolin. There are most likely enough Les Pauls and ES-335 out there to meet the demand for quite a while. There aren't enough decent paying blue collar jobs to replace the ones that will be lost if they go belly up.

[TonyP]

It could have something to do with this:
Once, at a festival, after examining one of my mandolins, Dave said something like; "If you ever want to move to Nashville..." then he described his benefit package and how he would be able to retire in X-number of years. Why would he leave a job that allows him to travel and play music with bands and supplies a benefit package and retirement to try to forge his own path in luthery like so many others of us?
Building and selling under a well known, established name sure has it's advantages!

I so hope that remains true for DH. And I fervently hope all this prognostication has not jinxed him. There have been others who thought that they were going retire there too.

[allenhopkins]

...There have been others who thought that they were going [to] retire there too.

Helluva lot of Kodak folks here in Rochester that had their comfortable retirements planned. Some are driving school buses. Even the ones who got some or most of what they were promised, found that "perks" like spouses' health insurance got axed. I'm constantly glad that I'm in the NY State civil service retirement system; never made much money when working, but relatively comfortable in retirement.

Sure couldn't live on what I make playing music...!

[f5loar]

Oh, the mandolin market will survive without Gibson in the mix just like the banjo market is thriving with several dozen builders making Gibson clones. Same for the mandolin. There are so many builders that can build a fine F5 copy for a lessor price (look for their prices to go up if Gibson goes out). And same can be said for Fender and Martin. There are so many builders making them to their specs it's rather ironic. Gibson will simply go down in history as one of the best American made string instruments with a long history that books have already been written. As far as DH, I've never met a better ambassador for Gibson than DH. He works hard, has been there long enough to know it all and loves doing his job. I've done Gibson factory tours since 1980 and have seen it go through major changes before. And in the past 100 plus years Gibson has seen major management and model changes. The biggest that really cost them their reputation was the complete change to all models in 1970. I don't know if one man was resposible for those changes, especially in the acoustic line, but they missed it big time. They snapped back from that low in 1978 and have taken it back to level of quality it needed to be to maintain their reputation. A restructure of management, a factory shut down or two and all of the lines revamped again could save them and mandolins should be kept in the line. A smaller Gibson Co. still making mandolins is better than no Gibson Co. making anything.

[Ivan Kelsall]

John - Gibson as a Co. have been on a slippery slope for a while now,partly due to the diversification brought about by their CEO,which hasn't always been of financial benefit to Gibson. If Gibson do collapse,Dave Harvey won't be getting any sort of benefits package - usually all the cash goes to the creditors of the collapsed Co. It's very likley that DH had (has) the confidence that Gibson will come out ok - i personally sincerely hope so for ALL the staff members.

However - i do take your point,but how many years back did DH say that to you ?,
Ivan

[Timbofood]

Corporate America is different for labor and management to be sure, the suits will lose some but the folks who actually work in the shop will lose a lot more and typically, they are the ones who need the paycheck to feed the roof over their heads. The suits might have to step from BMW to Chevy but...

[sunburst]

...how many years back did DH say that to you ?,
Ivan

It's been a few years. He was playing with Claire Lynch at the time.
I assume he was expecting Gibson to continue to operate as usual for the duration of his time there, so his motivation to stay there would have been strong.

[JeffD]

Maybe its a good thing. Maybe out of the ashes of less than competent senior management will be a boon to the companies supplying the niche markets Gibson abandoned. Maybe this will provide some opportunities to talented folks formerly employed by Gibson. It could happen that new companies will be born of the ashes.

"Orville" Guitars, Mandolins, Banjos anyone?

I don't know how to run a business. But the only constant is change, and the only one who likes change is a diapered infant.

Its dangerous to love a brand. Its scary to love anything that death can touch.

[allenhopkins]

..."Orville" Guitars, Mandolins, Banjos anyone?...

Well, we already have "Loar," named for a Gibson employee who introduced some innovative designs that helped make Gibson's reputation last up to the present. And we have Heritage, instruments made by former Gibson workers in Kalamazoo. I'd consider a "Harvey" mandolin any time.

More likely, "Gibson" mandolins made in Asia, for some canny US distributor -- following the path of Washburn, Regal, Oscar Schmidt, Flatiron, (some) Guild, (some) Breedlove, (some) Fender, and probably many more (Minnie Moore?) I can't come up with now.

[brunello97]

More likely, "Gibson" mandolins made in Asia, for some canny US distributor --

That would be so #######' grim.

Mick