Gibson True Historic

Adam_MD

Because we hear with our eyes and it doesn't say Gibson on it?

RollysGuitars

That's very interesting Mate, thanks for the advice. I would never buy one without test and compare it to one of my Historic LPs...it should beat at least my old R7 goldtop.

Catthan

Plastics, hide glue, PU covers and some of the specs is why LP fans buy LP-shaped gtrs from private builders.

People may now consider Gibson for their end-all LP rather than waiting a year or so.

What those people will still miss is hand made construction and attention to detail, careful wood selection (allegedly)  and maybe a braz. board.

I suspect you can get those for less than £5K too if you go private.

There's also this guy in Germany, Florian Jaeger or smth who does the equivalent of the US historic makeovers in EU.

If I wanted vintage-correct with G on the headstock at a lower price I'd get an old and beaten up historic for £1.5 to £1.6 and send it to him for the once over..

crunchman

capo4th said:

How much better is the £5000 Gibson than the £3500 Gibson that is the question or is it all in the plastics?

My understanding is that they have changed the neck tenon on the lower priced new range.  Currently the existing R8, R9 have the vintage style long tenon.  My understanding is that the new CS8, CS9  or whatever they are called have a different tenon.  There is a lot of debate about the affect of the tenon, but the purists are insistent that it is important.

As a result I don't think they will sell many guitars at all.  People will be put off the CS8,9 and others will refuse to pay stupid amounts more for the "True Historics" when you will be able to get the existing Historics second hand for half the price, which is essentially the same guitar with slightly different plastics.

RollysGuitars

On the other hand I really like my 2010 R7 Gold Top. It's a great guitar. I think I would rather keep it than spend £4000++ on the updated version that has better plastics, better pickups and hide glue. £4000 extra is a stupid amount of money for these upgrades.

Skipped

I am sure I have seen somewhere that the production numbers on the True Historics are going to be low. I can't find the figures but it was much lower than you might expect.
So I think something else is going on here.
I think they have realised that after 22 years flooding the market, something has got to give, and that the guys in the USA who seem to buy several R9s each year are probably not going to do that forever. As I keep saying.....you can't collect something that is not collectable.

So, instead.....I think they are going to flood the market with the 50s style, shortish tenon, Almost Historics. I am not sure how that helps but we will see. I suspect that the smart move will be to play 10 of these cheaper re-issues and buy the really great one.

CloudNine

Smart move might be to buy a 2013 or 2014 Historic. All the meaningful (if you can call them that) changes were made after 2012, and now in 2015 it's all gone mental. So they stand out as maybe a good option.

Panama_Jack666

Skipped said:

I am sure I have seen somewhere that the production numbers on the True Historics are going to be low. I can't find the figures but it was much lower than you might expect.
So I think something else is going on here.
I think they have realised that after 22 years flooding the market, something has got to give, and that the guys in the USA who seem to buy several R9s each year are probably not going to do that forever. As I keep saying.....you can't collect something that is not collectable.

So, instead.....I think they are going to flood the market with the 50s style, shortish tenon, Almost Historics. I am not sure how that helps but we will see. I suspect that the smart move will be to play 10 of these cheaper re-issues and buy the really great one.

300 of each I think?

stickyfiddle

It's nothing to do with making the best guitars and everything to do with extracting maximum dollarage from baby boomers before they all start dying and market collapses. 

Reading comments on TGP and LPF I feel like the only person who doesn't judge a man by the length of his tenon (oo-err...)

It doesn't matter if they only make 300 a year of each, that's still a shitload of factory-made guitars every year. It's not special, it's just expensive. I suspect 300 is fractionally less than the number they think they can sell. 

terada

I bought my r8 new for £2800 a couple of months back. It's a glorious guitar, and I stretched myself to buy it, because I knew there was no way I'd be able to afford a true historic. 

I'll play this thing till I die, and can't see how it could be improved. To me, it really is perfection. 

But 5-7k for what is essentially the same thing? Complete waste of cash, I'd feel sick every time I looked at it.

Glad I bought when I did, but sad that fewer guitarists will get the opportunity in the future.

crunchman

I think those of us who already have R7,8,9,0 will see an increase in their value as a result of this.  Not that I'm planning to sell mine.

It will be interesting to see how sales go for the likes of the PRS SC 245.  They might go up a bit.

RollysGuitars

terada said:

I bought my r8 new for £2800 a couple of months back. It's a glorious guitar, and I stretched myself to buy it, because I knew there was no way I'd be able to afford a true historic. . I'll play this thing till I die, and can't see how it could be improved. To me, it really is perfection. . But 5-7k for what is essentially the same thing? Complete waste of cash, I'd feel sick every time I looked at it. Glad I bought when I did, but sad that fewer guitarists will get the opportunity in the future.

I'm sure they've got the plans for years in advance how to improve this model line. They came out with hide glueing the neck joint, now the top to the body and so on. I'm sure they will come out with a "Really True Historic Reissue" model range soon. 

crunchman

They can't keep jacking the price up forever though.  Once they reach £200k you could just go out and buy an original!

UnclePsychosis

The people buying these won't give a shit if you can get a historic for cheaper.

The vast majority of the target market for this kind of thing is not constrained by the price tag. It's the same people who buy £20,000 watches and limited edition sportscars.

There are more than enough guitar buyers out there to whom £5k won't even register as an expense.

Evilmags

I think I'd rather own a feline

crunchman

They need to be careful though.  If they become perceived as a luxury brand then they will become "uncool" with young musicians.  If the young kids all go elsewhere it will lose them sales in the future.

RaymondLin

A Core PRS single cut is great value alternative compare to the Gibson now, can be picked up a little over £1k used and they are solid body these days and have long tenon, locking tuners, decent pick ups, just not Gibson that's all.

bobliefeld

It doesn't seem like good business. They're trying to maximise their ££ from a tiny, dedicated and dying audience.

I can see people paying for this stuff now but where's the next generation of Gibson customers going to come from? The internets already full of people going on about their dodgy QA and telling you to just buy a used Tokai instead.

Neil

UnclePsychosis said:

The people buying these won't give a shit if you can get a historic for cheaper.

The vast majority of the target market for this kind of thing is not constrained by the price tag. It's the same people who buy £20,000 watches and limited edition sportscars.

There are more than enough guitar buyers out there to whom £5k won't even register as an expense.

T'is true.

I'm a member on a couple of watch fora where some people will drop £10,000 at the drop of a hat - and there's a lot of them about.

Neil

bobliefeld said:

It doesn't seem like good business. They're trying to maximise their ££ from a tiny, dedicated and dying audience.

I can see people paying for this stuff now but where's the next generation of Gibson customers going to come from? The internets already full of people going on about their dodgy QA and telling you to just buy a used Tokai instead.

They actually make a very wide range of guitars at different prices so cover a lot of ground.

The LP Juniors are around £699 new I believe.