Gibson tries to tap the used market

[burpgun]

Not sure what to make of this, and doubt it would bring some wholesale change in the market, but interesting to see Gibson try to get a cut of sales of used guitars.

https://www.gearnews.com/gibson-sells-c ... -warranty/

[Embenny]

Fender actually tried this already, and it was a huge flop.

Gibson collectors are on a whole other level, though. As stupidly expensive as vintage Fenders have gotten, you don't hear about $450k sunburst strats and telecasters.

The people who buy 6-figure guitars will probably love this shit.

[SignoftheDragon]

A 'Gibson-verified-vintage-Gibson-from-Gibson.'

If that description sets your heart aflutter and your credit card a-swiping... I guess you'd deserve what you get. Some people pay other people to tell them what's cool/good/desirable because they don't have the time/taste/motivation to find it themselves.

[Jaguar018]

I think that just about all of the comments about this here (and on The Gear Page) basically conclude the same thing: that it's going to be for deep-pocketed 'collectors' and that's about it.

[BoringPostcards]

I love this comment at the bottom of the page:

“If you tolerate this, then your Gibson will be next This will eventually mean that you will not be able to describe your old Gibson as “Vintage” without paying Cibson a “Certification fee”, $5000? They had to get a slice of the vintage market because no one buys new Gibsons. Old Henry may have been a dick at times, but he was preferable to these carpet bagging scum. Gibson is like sepsis in the musical instrument market. Blacklist them now.“

[Larry Mal]

It's a funny comment but, well, hysterical and not based in fact.

There's a lot of fake vintage Gibsons out there, seems more like Gibson is offering a service that few might actually pay for but for those that do it likely adds value.

Gibson probably gets thousands of requests for authenticity a year, and I'd imagine that they might just want to defray some of that.

[Embenny]

Yeah, I see this potentially succeeding where Fender's program failed, because Gibson collectors already pay way higher prices than Fender ones. A lot of vintage Gibsons go for the type of money where certificates of authenticity begin to matter to people.

I never paid attention to the Gibson world before the last couple of years, but it's really very different from the culture surrounding Fenders - especially Offsets. Vintage prices are typically 4-5x what they are for comparable Fenders. Things $400k Les Pauls, $250k Flying Vs, and $50k Firebirds are around the high end of the market, which is around 4x the price of 50's Strat/Tele/JM. And the bottom end of the pre-Norlin Gibsons seem to sell at an even higher ratio compared to player-grade pre-CBS Fenders.

New Gibson reissues are also way higher priced than Fenders. You can get aged Fender Custom Shop reissues starting at like $4k, but Gibson does limited editions that start in the 5 figure range and climb as high as $50k. Seriously, they keep pumping out small runs of Murphy Lab guitars, like the korina Flying V and Explorer, or the "Greenie" Les Paul, for $50k, and then non-limited versions for around $10k.

So Gibson fans are willing to shell out $10k-$50k on reissues, while Fender fans with that kind of budget have their pick of actual pre-CBS guitars.

It's just a totally different world over in Gibson land - a collector's world, where paying $5k extra for a certificate from Gibson will make them feel more confident in their investment, and probably make it easier to sell to other collectors. It's totally divorced from the world where you value a guitar based on how it plays. It's become more like the art collecting world, where provenance is king.

So, it makes sense to me that this would be more successful than Fender's certified vintage program. Crazy prices mean crazy margins, and crazy margins mean the opportunity to make as much profit on a single "vintage certificate" as they probably make on half a dozen Les Paul Standards sold at retail.

[s_mcsleazy]

the weird thing is, this will probably boost the value of the instruments, even if it's a failure. like imagine in 10 years what the folk who actually bought these will be like "gibson certified used 59 les paul. remember gibsons' certified used system that failed? now is your chance to own one of those bad ideas"

[BoringPostcards]

It's a funny comment but, well, hysterical and not based in fact.

Agreed. Hysterical as fuck. Which is why I found it so funny.

[Larry Mal]

Agreed. Hysterical as fuck. Which is why I found it so funny.

No doubt. It's a very over the top post.

Although I agree with them about the Henry J years, I thought Gibson was great during that time.

I think this is all funny... I mean, there's already people you can pay who will authenticate your old Gibsons, and I have little doubt that a lot of those people know Gibson history better than the current company does.

At the same time, though, like Mike says, it's all about provenance. And if paying Gibson $5000 means my guitar is more likely to sell for $100,000, you can bet I would pay that, it's an investment at that point.

[øøøøøøø]

Gibson’s biggest high-end competition has always been old Gibson