Gibson Plant Raided

[progrmr]

Found this browsing another site - I'm not sure what's more alarming...Gibson being raided (probably for crappy pricing policies :) ) or the fact the department of fish and wildlife actually has agents!

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110824/NEWS21/110824021/Federal-agents-shut-down-Gibson-Guitar-Memphis-Nashville-plant-targeted-?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

[marnold]

I thought that had happened before too and I was right. The end of the article said 2009. Probably at least a report of illegally imported woods.

[mapka]

I'm glad our borders are secure enough that the Border Patrol can keep us safe from unruly illegal wood!

[Tig]

I'm telling ya', its the Firebird X causing all the problems!

http://img.ultimate-guitar.com/_img/news/other/Firebird_X.jpg

[progrmr]

man - that is one hideous guitar (IMO of course :) ) !!

[guitarhack]

I thought that had happened before too and I was right. The end of the article said 2009. Probably at least a report of illegally imported woods.

The most likely scenario, imho.

[goteyes]

Does anyone know what happened in the LAST case? DId they break regs? They always made a big thing about protecting the wood, like w/the 'Smartwood' series. Wonder if that fell by the wayside.

[Zip]

Here's the rest of the story from earlier this year: http://soundandfair.org/gibson-guitars-fails-to-overturn-illegal-madagascan-rosewood-and-ebony-charge

There's talk of Juszkiewicz coming out with plywood fretboards....with illegal African ivory inlays, of course. ;)

[FrankenFretter]

At least they didn't raid Robert Plant.

[Eric]

Wow, I read that link. Henry J. really is a tool.


At least they didn't raid Robert Plant.
You know, that reminds me of my sister's former co-worker who named her kid Gibson, since her husband is in a band and presumably plays Gibsons. I was wondering if they were going to name their next kid Danelectro or Gretsch(en), depending on the gender.

[whiteop]

Well Henry did say that we will run out of wood to make guitars in the next ten years so I'm not surprised they got busted. I'm willing to bet he'll start putting out more press releases like this so they can start selling for Gibsons for what it costs to buy a new car. Sort of reminds me of Total Recall when the bad guy was selling air...

[guitarhack]

Here's another angle on the story from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576530520471223268.html

[Eric]

Here's another angle on the story from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576530520471223268.html
Interesting stuff. I tend not to agree with the notion that Gibson is being bullied, both because of the company's recent history of very selfish behavior and because I have not seen a lot of other guitar companies being raided by federal agents.

[NWBasser]

This topic was posted at Talkbass too.

It quickly became very political and was closed.

Nice to see the lack of politics here.

In these things, I generally reserve judgement until the case has been tried and all the facts are available.

[NWBasser]

Found this browsing another site - I'm not sure what's more alarming...Gibson being raided (probably for crappy pricing policies :) ) or the fact the department of fish and wildlife actually has agents!

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110824/NEWS21/110824021/Federal-agents-shut-down-Gibson-Guitar-Memphis-Nashville-plant-targeted-?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

Nothing really alarming about Fish and Wildlife having agents. If a poacher is out killing some endangered or threatened species, someone has to enforce the law.

More to the point, what good are laws protecting various species of animals and plants if there's no agency (and agents) to investigate and enforce those laws?

[Eric]

More to the point, what good are laws protecting various species of animals and plants if there's no agency (and agents) to investigate and enforce those laws?
Well, I'll put it this way: I wouldn't be that surprised if there was a government agency like that with absolutely no ability to do anything about the violations it found. Seems like that would actually be pretty low on the incredulity scale.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

As with any black (or gray) market commodity, the exotic wood market is ultimately driven by the end-user who creates the demand. So, who's really responsible?

[Eric]

As with any black (or gray) market commodity, the exotic wood market is ultimately driven by the end-user who creates the demand. So, who's really responsible?
Everyone along the way: the suppliers (those harvesting), the buyers (companies using it), and the end users (people who buy the final product), along with anyone else involved in the chain. You're never absolved from doing the right thing, no matter how peripheral you are to the equation. If any of those things in the chain didn't exist, the wood might not have been used.

[NWBasser]

Everyone along the way: the suppliers (those harvesting), the buyers (companies using it), and the end users (people who buy the final product), along with anyone else involved in the chain. You're never absolved from doing the right thing, no matter how peripheral you are to the equation. If any of those things in the chain didn't exist, the wood might not have been used.

Great point Eric. I would just add that a lot of people aren't even aware of endangered tree/wood species and why harvesting/selling/using those woods may have some undesireable effects.

With so much information available on the internet, it wouldn't take much effort to gain a bit of understanding of the facts before forming an opinion about the issue at hand.

[NWBasser]

Well, I'll put it this way: I wouldn't be that surprised if there was a government agency like that with absolutely no ability to do anything about the violations it found. Seems like that would actually be pretty low on the incredulity scale.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised either!

[stingx]

Juskiewicz had better watch out. Worse case could find him (or his execs) in jail where they'll find plenty of ebony wood.

[Tig]

Juskiewicz had better watch out. Worse case could find him (or his execs) in jail where they'll find plenty of ebony wood.

Yikes! http://markweinguitarlessons.com/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif
:rollover

[NWBasser]

Juskiewicz had better watch out. Worse case could find him (or his execs) in jail where they'll find plenty of ebony wood.

:rollover

[Spudman]

Juskiewicz had better watch out. Worse case could find him (or his execs) in jail where they'll find plenty of ebony wood.

I'll bet if that happened they'd be getting reamed one more time by authority.

[bcdon]

Guitar Squid has a link to a CNN video regarding the raid, here (http://guitarsquid.com/Latest/cnn-follows-up-on-the-gibson-situation.html).

Compare Henry's lead in guitar playing to the outtake of one of his worker bees.

[Eric]

Compare Henry's lead in guitar playing to the outtake of one of his worker bees.
Yeah, that pretty much confirms the clip that Jimi75 posted a few weeks back of him trying to play lead and failing miserably. Juskiewicz is basically just a tool.

[Duffy]

I'm not sympathetic to Gibson's management decision and if they tried to fake papers or cover up their importation practice I'm not happy with that either. These resources in question are actually farmable, renewable, and sustainable if the right forest management is practiced. They are probably clear cutting or something even more disgusting, like "chaining".

People actually go to Federal Prison for violating these type of laws and Fish and Game has a lot of power, believe it or not, and even if they don't have enough mojo they will turn it over to the department of Justice that has all kinds of basically "free" lawyers that can make it Real expensive for Gibson to fight a case. They can drag it out for years, just like they are doing with the '09 incident, and cause Gibson to incur so much legal cost that it would make having a quick legal solution look super inexpensive. This is costing Gibson in legal fees, you can believe that, and the longer it drags out the more it will cost them. The Feds are obviously "on" them and probably are investigating a lot of other transactions as well. Something seemingly small could eventually turn out to be a very big deal, at least in terms of legal fees.

[stingx]

What they charge for a Les Paul Standard these days should be considered criminal alone...

[Neal]

I wish I would have seen this before I purchased my new neck for my Tele Project.

[RobertStyx]

Heard about this a while ago. Trying to pick up one of their guitars manufactured before all of this. Hopefully be worth a pretty penny in the future.