Categories: Guitar Equipment

This is an actual, published Gibson advert from 1986

Good lord. Here it is. A dispatch from the absolute nadir of the Gibson musical instrument company. This comp resembles nothing so much as this piece of graphic-design genius earlier described on this site. Who would have guessed that this company, responsible for the best electric and acoustic guitars of the 20th century, would have fallen so low? And even more surprising: that they bounced back in a mere 20 years, becoming the behemoth that they are today?

Two years later (1988 – above), Gibson was back to running full-page ads (this one’s for you, RR…). Note the hilarious high-school-notebook-style illustration work which attempts to position Gibson above “NoName, NoTone, Yamawho (Yamaha), Cartel (Charvel), IBenHad (Ibanez), Kromer (Kramer – ???), and Blender (again, don’t really get how this is a dig).

chris

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Tonmeister K says:

12/02/2013 at 11:46 pm

I swore off Gibson and Fender guitars when they got stuck in tradition and refused to move forward. Got tired tired of paying for endless 'so-called' re-issue series, not to menton the custom-shop jobbies, and don't even get me started on the road-worn wonders? I call them replicas. My local eBay and Kijiji is full of these instrument at low-ball prices. PRS is getting all the wonga I used to spend on Gibbys...and Ibanez 6/7/8 stringers are my go-to axes for modern cutting edge sounds..Replaced my Fender Precision with a (Leo Fender) Music-Man Ray in 78, and the Jazz bass with another Music-Man Sabre bass of the same year...best decision I ever made. ..Regards.
Tom Fine says:

12/03/2013 at 5:26 pm

Interesting factoid that not all Preservation Sound readers may know ... Gibson is now a large shareholder in Teac/Tascam:
http://tascam.com/news/display/911/

At the recent Audio Engineering Society Convention in NYC, Gibson's name was prominent and above Tascam at the electronics company's booth.

Maybe Gibson is getting a little bit more tech-savvy?

-- Tom Fine