The Gibson Theodore. Five Grand for What?
The Theodore in Cherry. It’s also available in Natural which is actually a stain and Black. The image quality is crap because it’s a screen grab from the Gibson site and the original image is pretty horrible
A couple of folks ask if I have a hate on for Gibson. I don’t and the number of Gibsons that I have owned over the decades documents that a great Gibson is a great guitar.
I’m not impressed with the current Gibson as a guitar lover. As an investor (I’m not, but you get the point) I would be happy. High profits, reduced costs, big demand, all good things if you look at Gibson as a business. But that’s not why I have bought so many Gibsons.
A very nominal bit of research reveals what is not a well kept secret. Gibson dealers have a list of items that they want to check as soon as a guitar comes out of the box, that time and evidence have shown are going to be problems. If you have a dealer where every Gibson is terrific, it means that a) they fixed them up or b) they inspected and sent back the bad stuff. Since margins for retailers suck, because those profits are going to the Gibson company not the dealers, it’s most often option b. Which is really costly to the retailer but not so much as option a.
So what has this to do with the Theodore?
The Theodore is the result of Gibson “discovering” the plans for this guitar alleged designed by Gibson’s greatest leader, the long past Ted McCarty. Mr. McCarty did not call this guitar the Theodore, that’s current Gibson marketing.
The Theodore, according to Gibson is an alder bodied guitar of what I call a tulip shape with a centre piece of walnut. It has what is plainly an Explorer neck with the hockey stick headstock. There are two P90 pickups and each has its own volume and tone pots of the generic 500k type. There is a three way pickup selector and a triangular scratchplate.
There is nothing unique or special here. The body shape is different but that’s just programming on a CNC machine. Everything else is parts bin stuff, so what makes it worth $5,000 USD?
Gibson’s bet is that the buyer is an idiot and is easily fooled. Nothing more.
Gibson is limiting the build to 318 instruments. Why? Because scarcity is a known demand generator. The guitar is not special in any way, any more than a general mahogany Flying V or Explorer is. And there is nothing to justify the massive price difference other than the expectation that they can fool those with more money than brains that this is special. The spec sheet reads like a page of verbal diarrhea. Historic, authentic, iconic and all the other bullshit baffles brains crapola that has been admittedly very successful for Gibson when the company brings the full court press of its media team to bear. We have not yet seen the glut of reviews by influencers like we saw with that horrible no matter how many you give away Acoustasonic Jazzmaster, but only because of the scarcity decision.
I understand limited runs. Gibson has done a few limited runs of Modernes, another McCarty design that was never actually released. I own one. It has a mahogany body, mahogany neck, unbound rosewood board, two humbuckers and the original Explorer headstock design. I paid the same for it as my mahogany Explorer. It’s not special, has questionable balance and is nowhere near the top ten of guitars I will go grab. However, it was not aggregiously priced and there is a long and fanciful story around Modernes. The Theodore is just a design that never got built. Ted McCarty probably made that decision.
With only 318 worldwide (this time - if it sells out, the limited quantity will get less limited, always has, always will) I don’t expect to see one live where I live in Canada. I cannot imagine any of the stores that I deal with being willing to pay up front for a questionable value guitar that sells for $5K USD. MAP pricing means you won’t see discounts. Oh there will be people who buy one. Not guitarists.
Gibson is building poor quality regular instruments. Even their Custom Shop stuff is suffering and only the Murphy Lab stuff gets any serious build quality attention. I love great guitars, but I will never spend that kind of money on a fake old guitar. I cannot afford it, but even if I could, it’s still fake old. The company recently shared a film shot in Kalamazoo in 1967. Things have changed since then, but you can see the care and attention in those workers. I have seen videos shot in the Nashville plant which is much brighter and much more worker safety oriented, but I don’t see the passion at this point. This happens when craft takes a back seat to volume and it’s only a matter of time before buyers just stop buying or take longer to buy, or look to alternatives, or perhaps buy food and heat instead of a $5K guitar that has no business being priced higher than $2K and that would still generate significant gross profit at that price and might actually be saleable by guitar shops struggling for product and margin.
If you are reading this or subscribe to my channel, I’m willing to bet that you aren’t the stupid punter that Gibson wants you to be and despite my great respect for Mr. Ted McCarty’s work, my fervent wish is that the Theodore crashes and burns. I don’t expect company leadership to even blink because their focus is on volume not making great guitars. That Gibson is sadly gone.
