Gibson F5's from the 70's

[stringdriventhing]

I've just recently started up playing mandolin after a long lay-off. I would like to know what was so bad about Gibson F5 mandolins during the 70's? I've read a lot of negative posts here and elsewhere about these mandolins, but they seem to lack empirical evidence for the most part. Best wishes, John C.

[rcc56]

In a nutshell, they were built and finished too heavily to produce good tone and volume.
The acoustic guitars from this period were also rather poor instruments.

[Jim Hilburn]

Just look at them. They sound worse.

[Fretbear]

Good ol' Lumpy

[MikeEdgerton]

...seem to lack empirical evidence...

Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation. What you've read is, under that definition, empirical evidence.

All you can go by is the opinions of people that have played them, or in this case suffered through them. I can't comment on their electric guitars from the era but the acoustic guitars from that same era weren't much to talk about in my book. I owned two that I couldn't get rid of fast enough. The Norlin years weren't a good time for Gibson.

[Timbofood]

The Norlin years were pretty dark for most pieces coming out of Kalamazoo and, other places back then but, a few of the guys had a vision which became the F-5L so, out of the darkness came new vision.
But, as to the original post, they were far from the instruments which the design was rooted in, less than stellar workmanship, built heavy as a Conestoga wagon with enough lacquer to finish a 40’ yacht!
They were just not very good. Some were salvageable some were/are not.

[eightmoremiles]

I have a '75 F5 that I bought 30+ years ago. It was a dog. No volume to speak of, dull tone, but it looked OK from a distance. I had my luthier do a frame-off, rotisserie restoration. Back removed, new tone bars, a lot of wood removed from top and back, totally refinished in thin varnish, and it now sounds great. But that was not a cheap fix. What were they thinking? MSRP on those when new was $2500.

[Jim Hilburn]

Should I mention the Japan connection? Oh, never mind.

[Dillon]

I had one from '69 - with the block fret markers. Empirically speaking, it sucked.

[Jim Hilburn]

Dillon, yours was still an old style Kalamazoo mandolin. It has a dovetail neck and doesn't have the fancy inlayed fingerboard that was common on the 70's Gibson's and all the Japanese mandolins of the same era. Something drastic changed by the early 70's.

[stringdriventhing]

Thanks for your replies, best wishes, John C.

[CES]

I played one probably 7 or 8 years ago at a local shop. It’s admittedly the only ‘70s Gibson mando I’ve had my hands on. There was a 16 year old kid who played in his praise band there looking to add a mandolin to his arsenal. I steered him to the Morgan Monroe hanging on the wall beside the Gibson. That should speak volumes...

[MikeEdgerton]

... I steered him to the Morgan Monroe hanging on the wall beside the Gibson. That should speak volumes...

It does

[rcc56]

It could be argued that an Eastman 615, made in China, is likely to be a much better sounding instrument than a 70's Gibson.

[multidon]

I had always heard that they started building them so heavily because they wanted to make DARN sure there would be no returns for warranty repairs.

[Timbofood]

I had always heard that they started building them so heavily because they wanted to make DARN sure there would be no returns for warranty repairs.

Nice thought but, I think it was more due to the loss of “talented, experienced” bench hands through the Norlin acquisition and dismissals. The guys “nailing them together” was because they didn’t understand what they were doing, the week before they were rough cutting Les Paul bodies, what did they know about graduating tops,backs, and why did these guys care? They were weeks or months away from being unemployed.
When you live in Kalamazoo, you tend to have met a fair number of employees who were dismissed, literally weeks before they would have gotten their retirement benefits.
It’s still a little bit of a touchy subject but, as the old guard passes to the larger life people forget.
Sorry about the rant but, I’ve known this from knowing the “old guard”. And now Heritage has repeated history by walking 18 year employees out the door. It has hit very close to me. I won’t go any further along those lines.
The long and short of the OP’s question is there is a huge log of empirical evidence which solidly concurrently shows those years were dog product.
Good night folks.

[Larry Simonson]

For many years I was pretty convinced that "empirical evidence" was redundant. I was thinking what other kind of evidence it there. Then one fine day I thought of 'theoretical' evidence. Theoretical evidence exists when a theory predicts something without it actually be observed, once observed it is empirical evidence. Oh boy these are trying days.

[Jim Hilburn]

I know of someone who had a Gibson of this era who bragged about how loud it was, and it was loud, but not in a good way.

[Timbofood]

I know of someone who had a Gibson of this era who bragged about how loud it was, and it was loud, but not in a good way.

I remember a story of a guy here in town who handed Doyle Lawson his Gibson (I think Doyle was playing a Pag at the time), Doyle looked at it a minute, handed it back just saying, “Heavy, ain’t it?”
That story always makes me snicker, I can just hear the way that came out of Doyle’s mouth!

[Mandoplumb]

I agree these mandolins were dogs, but what I don’t understand is why did that the name still sell mandolins? All custom builders of the time put Gibson on the peg head, even those with a reputation of building good mandolins. I asked Johnny Hutto why he put Gibson on his and was told you couldn’t give them away if you didn’t. Which brings my question up. If Gibson is making garbage why does their name still sell??!

[carleshicks]

I had a 77 that I bought from Tony Williamson when I was 15. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good by any means. The finish was as thick as a car window.

[jim simpson]

Not from the 70's but rather the 60's, here's one on Reverb listed by a very optimistic seller:

https://reverb.com/item/32967139-gib...rare-near-mint

[MikeEdgerton]

I agree these mandolins were dogs, but what I don’t understand is why did that the name still sell mandolins? All custom builders of the time put Gibson on the peg head, even those with a reputation of building good mandolins. I asked Johnny Hutto why he put Gibson on his and was told you couldn’t give them away if you didn’t. Which brings my question up. If Gibson is making garbage why does their name still sell??!

The reason Hutto et al put that name on the headstock wasn't because of the company that had that name that was currently building instruments, it was because Bill Monroe was playing one from the 20's with that name on the headstock. Gibson finally turned that around with the help of Roger Siminoff and others. What the then Gibson company was building and calling mandolins really wasn't what the market was clamoring for. They wanted the same sort of instrument that Monroe was playing and there were as there are now very few examples of that instrument. There were several builders that had that figured out and were building these instruments. Some of those named builders eventually were building with their own names on the mandolin. It was a different world and a different time. Now you can buy very decent F5 mandolins from many builders.

If Gibson is making garbage why does their name still sell??!

Like most other companies with any longevity they have good and bad years and Gibson doesn't just make mandolins. The stuff from the Derrington era and Harvey era are very good instruments (I'm sure there could be an exception) but with all that said, mandolins aren't a real big part of what Gibson sells. I have a 2005 Gibson I will never sell.

[William Smith]

I believe any of these from say th 50's-70's with some serious work if bought cheap enough could be made into excellent mandolins! It will take some time and work and if done by yourself to cover the repair bill such as taking the back off for a full internal re-graduation and new tone bar placement, also maybe slowly scraping away the super thick lacquer on the top, back, sides and neck and setting the neck at a steeper angle one may have a mighty fine mandolin!

I know some makers have re-done 60's-70's f-5's+12's and they turned out mighty fine!

I'd say practice on an old a model or a cheap import like an ibenez, kentucky etc...but then again only if you can buy one cheap enough as most from all these eras are dogs! The most i'd ever spend on one of these from the late 60's-70's would be way less than 1000 bucks but i'm sure re-done one could have a heck of a mandolin-but do the work yourself-slowly and you could have a fine sounding mandolin for a great deal? Just my opinion on these ultra heavy, thin sounding, with what 20 coats of shiny lacquer!

[Jim Hilburn]

William, you (and I) are from the time when re-graduating a later Gibson was nearly the only way of getting a decent sounding mandolin. I just don't see why anyone would do that now.
The mandolin Jim Simpson linked to is clearly a Kalamazoo instrument. To me from the pics I've seen anyway, they stuck with the same basic construction tfrom the early 50's till '69 or so but the workmanship just got worse as time went on. Like the mid 50's archtop guitars as well as the mandolins were very well made but the mandolin design was what was bad.
When the radical change in design happened in the early 70's I have a hunch they were being assembled in Kalamazoo, not built.