It's a tough business... This is making the rounds now.
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It's a tough business... This is making the rounds now.
[FBV]857848971238751[/FBV]
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After reading Dean Guitars reply to Gibson. I hope that mandolin builders join in the consortium or form their own to undo or fight these claims.
Funny you would post of photo of a Gibson Flying V. A 1958 Flying V just sold a few weeks ago for $395,000. About all I can say about Gibson and their mandolins is they are indeed making some of the finest they have made since late 20's. As far as Gibson guitars both acoustic and electric, they do seem to be getting their fair share of the market in Rock and Roll and today's Country (which is just a spin off of Rock & Roll). The current Gibson Co. is too big to be small and too small to be big. That's not a good place to be in today's changing world wide market.
Gibson just closed their Memphis plant. They are getting smaller. However, my young friend who works for them again mentioned that they are building a new corporate office in downtown Nashville. The 60 employees who lost their jobs when the Memphis plant was liquidated probably are not too happy about that.
The few recent issue Gibson flat-tops I have played are hit or miss-- some were "good enough" [sorry about that] but not great, some are pretty weak because of heavy build and finish. None were in the class of a good early '50's J-45 or a good '30's L-00, though.
The modern flat-tops with pickups do make good stage guitars. The electronics are pretty good.
It's not easy to find an F-5 made in the last 10 years. They have only been made in very small numbers. Out of the 14 modern era F-5's for sale in the major Nashville stores right now, one was made in 2007. The others were made in 2001 or earlier.
Last edited by rcc56; Jun-21-2019 at 11:33pm.
I'll join you and drag out an "authentic" mid-1930's, steel body fiddle-edge, roundneck Dobro. The last from what used to be a small collection I had. The brand name that Gibson killed.
It's a shame these '30's metal Dobros are in the wastebasket of history, unloved although they sound fantastic. Nobody was able to take up the torch like National Resophonic did with the biscuit cone resonator guitars, once Gibson locked up the name.
That's a video, not an image posted above so if you click it you'll see the rest of the content which is getting widely discussed elsewhere. Some people think it's an important bit of information, some won't. That's not a Gibson he's holding and talking about.
I stated this at the outset but I'll reiterate more clearly in case anyone thinks I'm taking sides. My interest is the unfolding story and how it impacts the mandolin community and making sure those with an interest--builders, retailers, consumers-- get a more complete sense of what's going on. Much of this to my experience which includes a lot of years in corporate is business posturing, the folks at the top flexing their muscles. That's what you do when you're in those positions and its their right. The new folks driving the Gibson bus were hired to turn a profit first and that's what they're going to try to do. It's either that or they will get shown the door by the people that put them there if they think they aren't doing their job. Whether I agree with their methods or whether others here do or don't is a moot point and a lot of idle online chatter.
I do think much of the criticism of Mark Agnesi is over the top and mean spirited. He had a job to do communicating the message, likely at someone else's direction, and did so. So maybe a future at a TV News anchor is not his, but he knows the music business. The screw-up to my mind is no one at Gibson anticipated the response and then doubled down on a bad decision by pulling a video that's now widely available.
I'd like to see the company succeed, and but in the end what I think doesn't matter. That's for every individual to decide for themselves. There's long been a disconnect between the top at Gibson and the folks making the product and selling it. Don't see that changing.
But I can say this with certainty: I've seen the contents of one (or possibly more) of the demand letters sent to a mandolin builder which was nothing short of eye popping and filled with inaccurate information. There's so much more going on here. Maybe it'll be public at some point, maybe it won't.
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Although $350 million is a mere rounding error in a very small corner of KKR's investment space, rest assured that shareholder value will take precedence over all else and there will be extreme pressure placed on the operators to turn things around within a very short period of time. Often the biggest reason that 50% of all acquisitions fail is because of that very disconnect between the VC guys making decisions based on performance and the folks actually running the business tasked with keeping employees and customers happy.
Last edited by mtucker; Jun-22-2019 at 8:52am.
I've never had a US job wherein I did't have the final say on whether or not I followed through on a order. On two occasions, the pay wasn't enough to have me abandon my own principles, and in all other cases I never was asked to do something against those principles. That acceptance of one's own personal responsibility for one's own actions is part of being a big boy, and of putting on one's big boy pants in the morning before work.
Sorry, but I just couldn't leave the "just following orders!" defense out there without pointing out that his actions were the result of his personal choice in whether to follow through.
----
Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.
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We probably will never conclusively find out what was going on inside that head at the time of recording.
On one hand, there was too much emotion in his face for someone who is at peace with his own views.
On the other hand, there was too much emotion in his face for someone just reciting a learned text.
There is such a thing as seduction into persuasion, when someone absorbs pseudo-logic others have told him and agressively defends it. Dangerous people they are.
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
If I were Mark, I’d be thinking “this isn’t what I signed up for”.
I had one of those Ibanez V’s. It was awesome. Unfortunately it was stolen along with a bunch of other instruments.
"your posts ... very VERY opinionated ...basing your opinion/recommendations ... pot calling ...kettle... black...sarcasm...comment ...unwarranted...unnecessary...."
For your entertainment, this is from the Gibson site. As Scott noted they are trademarks and not necessarily patents. Gibson Brands Registered Trademarks
Perhaps some attorneys can tell us exactly what the legal difference is. For instance, what modifications would be needed on a design for a peghead inlay to not violate Gibson's trademark? If we had flowers in the flower pot or extra arms in the fern? Or does the violator have to copy the designs very closely?
There are also design patents which would not register functionality but AFAIK are vaguely enforceable depending on how blatant the copying is.
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
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Last edited by Mandolin Cafe; Jun-22-2019 at 1:01pm. Reason: violates forum posting guidelines. We get it... you're covered elsewhere here
Back around 1936 a NJ company called Meissner Inventions sued the major American Companies who manufactured electric instruments. I believe that that included Gibson, Rickenbacker and Epiphone and probably a few others. Gibson and Rickenbacker told them to take a walk but you stil see a few Epiphone electric guitars and lap steels with a Meissner plate on the body. I suppose they paid a licensing fee to cover their patents. Eventually Epiphone realized that they didn't have to do it either. I don't know if that was as a result of countersuits or not. That was in the early days of electric instruments. In any case much of this is never cut and dry and has to sometimes be decided in court.
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
The bottom line is that we all thought or hoped that the recent depressing era was over and we were hoping for sunny days ahead. It appears to be just the opposite. I don’t care about Gibson anymore. I have a 2015 Gibson advanced jumbo luthiers choice. It is a fantastic guitar. But the entire management of Gibson could jump in the lake for all I care. I’m confident the company will be owned by the Chinese within five years.
Pretty sad to see Gibson do this. I stopped buying new Gibsons when the wood issue came about and I did not feel that paying more for a name brand was good enough when there putting lower quality products on these. richlite comes to mind . Putting beeswax finishes on a guitar. Like really? The product now is like shopping at a walmart store. The box gets smaller but the price goes up. Ill bow out from buying another Gibson. Ill support the talented luthier crowd .
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
I actually find it pretty cool that there are guitar and mandolin builders far superior and way better in quality builds than Gibsons period . And those are worth spending the money on.
There are others:
TENNESSEAN® (U.S. Reg. No. 38846555) (That's also a newspaper in Nashville.)
THUNDERBIRD® (U.S. Reg. No. 3989004)
PURE® (U.S. Reg. No. 2644117) (But not 99 44/100%)
ONE MORE TIME® (U.S. Reg. No. 4042789
WORN® (U.S. Reg. No. 4092717) (That includes me. Do I have to pay 'em for my old age?)
And the list goes on. It borders on ridiculous. No, it's ridiculous.
David Hopkins
2001 Gibson F-5L mandolin
Breedlove Legacy FF mandolin; Breedlove Quartz FF mandolin
Gibson F-4 mandolin (1916); Blevins f-style Octave mandolin, 2018
McCormick Oval Sound Hole "Reinhardt" Mandolin
McCormick Solid Body F-Style Electric Mandolin; Slingerland Songster Guitar (c. 1939)
The older I get, the less tolerant I am of political correctness, incompetence and stupidity.
Reminds me of the 1990s parody about another large corporation - Microsoft copyrights God:
"Microsoft Corporation today announced its intent to purchase, copyright, and upgrade God. The new product would be named, predictably enough, "Microsoft God..."
197 posts in 4 1/2 days, the majority of them not very favorable to Gibson.
Even if they win a settlement, they are probably not helping themselves . . .
Here's hoping Gibson kicks axx and takes names in this.
In the almost 100 years since the iconic LL mandolins (and the decade of great design before that), designers still can't come up with their own designs?
Such designers still copy the designs that another company's designers produced and count on their adherence to those design specifications as "proof" of their quality?
And everyone demonizes Gibson? GMAB.
Really a sad case being made here. And the quoting of "copyright" laws makes it only that much more pathetic.
More power to Gibson.
Let's see some more design originality from contemporary mandolin makers. And from buyers.
You want a Gibson design? Buy a Gibson.
You want an original design? Buy one from an original designer.
Stop copying. Design. Man up.
Quit being such crybabies.
Mick
Ever tried, ever failed? No matter. Try again, fail again. Fail better.--Samuel Beckett
______________________
'05 Cuisinart Toaster
'93 Chuck Taylor lowtops
'12 Stetson Open Road
'06 Bialetti expresso maker
'14 Irish Linen Ramon Puig
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