What are the darkest years of Gibson QC?

chadd said:
It looks like you're talking about the 80s stuff that I said was awful. The file marks or finish flaws I see people railing about over the last few years are generally imperceptible without magnification.
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We were a Gibson Showcase dealer. We also had Hamer, Kramer, Fender, Ibanez and BC Rich. We saw more QC issues with the high end Gibsons than any other guitars .Stuff that came out of the box that wouldn't intonate or had bad fretwork or finish flaws that were noticeable. Then we would get a few seconds that were flawless could find nothing so? Fender was almost as bad with the MIJ guitars at that time more consistent than the US guitars. The late 1980's were not great years for both Gibson and Fender. However the stuff in that era from in particular Hamer and Kramer was stellar. This was when both were almost exclusively high end US built guitars. We never had enough BC Riches to really know them.
 
Some of the late 70s and early 80s were the heaviest Gibsons. On some guitars, you can see the multiple asymmetrical pieces of wood glued together (you can see the seams through the paint). They had a handful of good ideas then (ES Artist, Firebrands, my Howard Roberts Fusion), but Norlin wasn't really a guitar-centric company.
 
I have a 2013 SG and it's a great guitar besides the pingey nut. Needed a fair amount of fret work too. But nothing feels as good in my hands as that guitar.

Just played a 2021 Les Paul a couple days ago and it was quite nice. Again, frets not exactly to my liking, but that's fixable.

I really doubt you can nail down a range of years to avoid with a significant degree of accuracy. You're talking about tens of thousands of guitars to say "nah, QC probably sucked here". But I don't buy guitars online (hear that, self?) so I have no stake in the fight. I'm sure some Gibson heads - maybe Les Paul Forum, EverythingSG - could provide better feedback than me.

If I WERE buying Gibsons online, I'd lean towards recent years. But that's just based on a "few owners = better" mentality with my instruments in general. The older it is, the more likely it is to have multiple owners, the more damage is likely to have happened in rehearsal/bars, the more work it's likely to need, the more goofy stuff you're likely to find on it that doesn't show up in pictures (like divots on the back of the neck, stripped truss rod nut, flat frets, etc)
 
I've seen gorgeous Gibsons, and I've never really seen horrible ones. One thing, though: I've never been inspired to buy one for the prices being asked. I own Epis and like them, but for the cash that people ask for Les Pauls and ES's, I can get Hamers, Carvins, and PRS's that I do vibe with.
 
I have some great Les Paul's but it took me years and years to come across one worth buying. I never have that issue with any other brand. Out of all the brands of guitars I have, Gibson is the only brand I must play before buying. PRS, Nik Huber, Knaggs, Grosh, Anderson, Suhr, Baker, Collings, etc. I would and have.
 
Since buying my SG in 2002 I have seen more focus on QC by Gibson. They include handwritten documentation of the QC process and even a photograph of the guitar on the bench during the final check.

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Mincer said:
Some of the late 70s and early 80s were the heaviest Gibsons. On some guitars, you can see the multiple asymmetrical pieces of wood glued together (you can see the seams through the paint). They had a handful of good ideas then (ES Artist, Firebrands, my Howard Roberts Fusion), but Norlin wasn't really a guitar-centric company.
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I can attest to the anchors they sold as guitars. I had a 78 pro deluxe that was over 13lbs and an utter hunk of junk.
 
AlexR said:
There were a few from the 50's like that too.
You get them in all eras. There are more than a few SG's even now have a neck angle like a Les Paul....so the bridge has to sit so jacked up the bridge pickup is almost out of the rout to be the right volume compared to the neck.

The biggest problem people had in the 70's and 80's was the lack of history to compare it to before that. A couple of years of the Les Paul before it got discontinued, and then of course the spec changes happened before they really got into the stride of ramping up production.
But any close look at 50's guitar will show you they are just as random......a quick look at BOTB or burstserial shows an incredible inconsistency. There are some guitars where the mortice was routed so out of centreline that the D or G string is inline with the 'centre' maple seam at the tailpiece......but that sort of thing tends to get glossed over by those wanting to idolise the 50's at the expense of other eras.
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Yeah, I've seen similar with SGs, particularly those that have a Nashville bridge, neck angle seems to be more pronounced so the bridge has decent adjustability both ways, as it's a bigger unit; VOS stuff with ABR-1 seems to have a smaller angle.

Mm, not to mention neck shapes, top dishing, tooling marks on the fingerboard, like they used some kind of wire wheel on the frets. I recall reading about this in Gil Yaron's epic TDPRI thread where he was building a 59 replica. If you were to get a bunch of bursts in a room and measure them, each one would be different.
 
I have never even seen a '50s Les Paul up close, but I am sure that is true just based on my own personal experience with two 1962 SG Specials that felt like they were built by different companies! One (mine) had a very small neck, a 10" radius on the fretboard, and nicely rounded edges everywhere. Just a joy to hold & play. The other had a wide, fat neck and sharp edges on all the body contours. I hated it.
Same model, same year.
So yeah, some of the best and worst guitars I have ever tried in shops were Gibsons. Most were fine but some were just wonky. 1960s through early 1990s. After that I stopped constantly shopping guitars and have had almost no contact with any made after 1996 or so.
 
Securb said:
I have 5 Gibsons ranging from 2002 - 2019 and they are all great guitars with no flaws. There is a saying that happy customers tell no one, unhappy customers tell everybody. I think the QC thing with Gibson is more myth than fact.
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I have 4 Gibsons. Only one is jacked up...but it was supposed to be that way!

That said...at their price - there should be no issues a screwdriver can't adjust (note I did not say fix)
 
I've had 5 Gibsons over the decades:

'89 LPC
'90 SG Special
'08 CS '61 LP/SG Custom
'13 Tikibird
'13 LP Traditional

I can't say any of them sucked QC-wise. The Custom Shop SG, however, is of course the best.

I just hate Gibson's yearly hundreds-of-dollars price increases. What extra value are we getting? Jack shit. Not to mention their buying up of other quality companies and letting them rot.
 
Mincer said:
Some of the late 70s and early 80s were the heaviest Gibsons. On some guitars, you can see the multiple asymmetrical pieces of wood glued together (you can see the seams through the paint). They had a handful of good ideas then (ES Artist, Firebrands, my Howard Roberts Fusion), but Norlin wasn't really a guitar-centric company.
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There was a lot of not so much "Bad" as "Bad idea"
 
LLL said:
I
I just hate Gibson's yearly hundreds-of-dollars price increases. What extra value are we getting? Jack ****. Not to mention their buying up of other quality companies and letting them rot.
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I must say I am cool with their prices
 
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