Destruction of Gibson Firebirds

**grahambop** · 07-31-2019, 01:06 PM

Just saw this on Facebook, not sure what led up to it!

**Greentone** · 07-31-2019, 01:12 PM

Could Gibson not have given those instruments to schools? Any effort to encourage music instruction in the US would be better than wanton destruction, no?

What am I missing?

**BBGuitar** · 07-31-2019, 01:29 PM

It happens more often than you think.

Back in the late 70's when I had a pickup truck. Our local Fender rep. asked me to take a number of amplifiers to the dump. He went along with me to confirm that they did go to the dump. Well they did go to the dump but never left my truck. The only thing that left my truck was some real trash.

Returns, damaged in shipment, flaws, bugs in the wood, whatever. It's cheaper to trash them rather than ship back for rework.

I'll bet these are counterfeits ordered destroyed.

**Jabberwocky** · 07-31-2019, 01:39 PM

Could have given them to needy children with the logo removed. But that's Henry J's baby and they are excising what are reminders of him.

I guess the surviving few that were sold-surely some liked them and some were sold-would be worth a few millions of $ in 2079. Everything bad that happened to Gibson in a year ending in 9 turned out to be good for collectors...

Most collectible Gibson ever...

**jzucker** · 07-31-2019, 03:09 PM

what I heard was that these guitars were part of the shipments of robot tuners that the stores couldn't sell and gibson bought them back and destroyed them in order to collect on some type of insurance. Then they figured they'd get the publicity by posting this video. I think it's backfiring. They could have sanded the logo off and donated them to schools. I'm pretty horrified and can't see myself ever buying a new gibson again.

**Alter** · 07-31-2019, 03:32 PM

Yeah, seems to be the fate of the Firebird X model, the pinnacle of the electronic guitar, built-in effects, usb etc, robot tuners Gibson era.

After the hard to follow play authentic video, this does an excellent job in raising the stakes for this.. company.I wonder what will they come up with next..

**Jim Soloway** · 07-31-2019, 03:41 PM

Virtually every builder destroys some duds or products they consider to be mistakes. They are not a charity and their first priority has to be protecting their brand. Somewhere I have photos of a whole batch of finished bodies in a trash can outside our old house in Portland. There was nothing structurally wrong. They just has a design feature that I hated once they were complete. It was my mistake so I ate the cost rather than having our name on guitars that I didn't like.

**jzucker** · 07-31-2019, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

Virtually every builder destroys some duds or products they consider to be mistakes. They are not a charity and their first priority has to be protecting their brand. Somewhere I have photos of a whole batch of finished bodies in a trash can outside our old house in Portland. There was nothing structurally wrong. They just has a design feature that I hated once they were complete. It was my mistake so I ate the cost rather than having our name on guitars that I didn't like.

they could have had the names filed off and donated them.

**Jim Soloway** · 07-31-2019, 03:49 PM

Originally Posted by jzucker

they could have had the names filed off and donated them.

They could have but it's almost certainly worth more them to destroy them. If nothing else it makes a very positive public statement: "We're the new Gibson and we refuse to be associated with this abomination". I see that as a very positive thing.

**jzucker** · 07-31-2019, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

They could have but it's almost certainly worth more them to destroy them. If nothing else it majes a very positive public statement: "We're the new Gibson and we refuse to be associated with this abomination". I see that as a very positive thing.

Sorry, as someone who's spent time in inner city schools as well as arts programs watching the horrible condition of musical instruments they have, i strongly disagree with your assertion that this is a positive statement and so do 99% of the commenters on the youtube posting.

DONATING THESE INSTRUMENTS TO CHARITY is the strongest public statement they could have made.

**wengr** · 07-31-2019, 04:09 PM

This type of thing happens across indusries. For example, my sil used to work for Phillips. When a certain kind of led bulb was coming in, certain models of incandescant bulbs had to go. And they went in dozens of 40 yard dumpsters. No donations, no employees can have or buy them. To the dump. Pretty typical I would imagine.

That said, to do it in this fashion and let it be publicized is beyond stupid.

**2bornot2bop** · 07-31-2019, 04:35 PM

Is there little wonder why the planet's in such a mess! What a waste of resources!

**Longways to Go** · 07-31-2019, 04:36 PM

Some of those don't look too bad !!!
I think The Who was better at destroying guitars

**GNAPPI** · 07-31-2019, 04:46 PM

I worked in manufacturing PC's and peripherals and we did the same thing... crush and discard. I can see the gits being donated and then sold on Ebay.

In the "Let no good deed go unpunished" department... A local donut store at the end of the day used to donate (same day) donuts to local needy till they got sued because one got a belly ache. Donuts and cheap wine don't mix.

From then on they threw them out on the morning the dumpster arrived to prevent "diners" from going in the dumpster.

**GNAPPI** · 07-31-2019, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by wengr

>>SNIP<<

That said, to do it in this fashion and let it be publicized is beyond stupid.

Of course no employee of Gibson with a grudge, passerby, or the trash contractor could not possibly have taken that pic?

**Jim Soloway** · 07-31-2019, 04:52 PM

Originally Posted by jzucker

Sorry, as someone who's spent time in inner city schools as well as arts programs watching the horrible condition of musical instruments they have, i strongly disagree with your assertion that this is a positive statement and so do 99% of the commenters on the youtube posting.

DONATING THESE INSTRUMENTS TO CHARITY is the strongest public statement they could have made.

I'm not about to blame Gibson for the state of inner city schools nor am I about to assign them the responsibility for fixing that. Investors sunk about $70 million into trying to revive a dying company. For that kind of commitment they bought the right to make decisions that they believe are in the best interest of their company.

**Gitfiddler** · 07-31-2019, 05:05 PM

Gibson could have donated the guitars to their own charitable foundation and/or to one of their many associated partners.

Gibson Foundation

**Jim Soloway** · 07-31-2019, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by Gitfiddler

Gibson could have donated the guitars to their own charitable foundation and/or to one of their many associated partners.

Gibson Foundation

Or maybe they had to get rid of them to settle the dispute over their discontinuation of the self-tuning mechanism? We really don't know any of the details other than this is a decision that they made because they thought it would help the company in its bid to survive..

This is a distressed company that was kept alive by creditors who poured in a lot more money to try save the money they had loaned the previous owners. If they manage to save the company they deserve a lot of credit. If they fail, well at least they paid in advance for the right to try.

And 2B, the person who said that is now long gone, leaving a mountain of forfeited debt behind him.

**neatomic** · 07-31-2019, 06:07 PM

those robot firebirds were 5,500 $$$$ guitars in 2010!!!...imagine the guys that bought them seeing this pic!!

in 20 years there will be a custom shop reissue

awful stuff

cheers