Chris Martin IV, the CEO of Gibson competitor C.F. Co. Ltd. in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to make mandolin-family instruments. Jazz musician Charlie Christian, who would establish the electric guitar as an instrument with its own unique voice, thought so. Gibson opened its Memphis facility 18 years before, which occupies just a portion of a massive 127,620 square foot complex. In November 2009 authorities found illegally imported ebony wood from Madagascar. In 1960, Gibson Les Paul sales were significantly lower than in previous years. As part of its debt restructuring, the company closed and liquidated the unprofitable Gibson Innovations division, which was focused on selling audio equipment outside of the U.S., allowing Gibson to focus on its most profitable ventures, such as musical instruments. Share. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}36°07′48″N 86°43′33″W / 36.1298758°N 86.7257458°W / 36.1298758; -86.7257458, Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. Otherwise, in the history of the Gibson Guitars, the earliest documented instrument is made by Orville Gibson in 1984, a restaurant clerk in Kalamazoo MI. He is granted his one and only patent in 1898. A craved contoured top harkened back to the very first Orville Gibson instruments of the late 1800’s and a gold finish signified a value above all others. From 1984 to around 1988-89 all acoustics were made in Nashville. Like the ES-150 in 1936, Gibson’s first solid body electric had to uphold Gibson tradition while going a step beyond all other guitars of its kind. I have no idea why Gibson quit making the Goldtone amps as they are some of the best of the best killer amps in the world. The Gibson SG is a solid-body electric guitar model introduced by Gibson in 1961 as the Gibson Les Paul SG. In 1958 McCarty debuted not one, but two radical new ideas-a semi-hollow body electric and a group of exotic, futuristic solid bodies. [34][35] A second raid was conducted in August 2011,[34] during which the FWS seized wood imports from India that had been mislabeled on the US Customs declaration. Sixth Edition: Gibson Serialization. http://www.gibson.com/Gibson/History.aspx, New Electric Guitar: The Espada Synthwave – Limited Edition, Mark Knopfler’s Teisco TG-64 Electric Guitar Is On Auction. “Apparently, when they laminated the sandwich, they did not have great control of the moisture content in the wood and they got a lot of checking in the guitars. The Gibson website provides a book to help with serial number deciphering. Gibson pushed on into the 1960s with two more bold, modern solid body lines-the double-cutaway SG models of ‘61 and the reverse-body Firebirds of ‘63. The building was next to the Michigan Central Railroad, and stood for many decades, until it came down in the late 20th century. Gibson used the same type of carved, arched tops in archtop acoustic guitars, and by the 1930s was also making flattop acoustic guitars and electric archtop guitars. In 1958, Gibson produced two new designs: the eccentrically shaped Explorer and Flying V. These "modernistic" guitars did not sell initially. Photography Eleanor Jane. Gibson had introduced an electric guitar in 1935, the aluminum-bodied Electric Hawaiian Guitar.