Or, it's an attempt to capture a portion of a market which they are not in currently without destroying their brand image. Seems pretty smart to me, Gibson's your high end, Epi's midline, Spirit's low end. You don't sell Gibsons ar Toys R Us, you don't sell Spirits at Guitar Center. Everyone can buy your guitars, you make money.
But, even if I take your analysis at face value (and I don't, mind you, but if I did). Yeah, you know that's why BMW has the 120 AND the 760. That's why you can buy a VW Jetta AND an Audi S8. If you're a large manufacturer it's not a bad idea to be able to serve your customer base at all levels of their financial development.
I can, and I did. "We'll make a guitar out of the same stuff they make kitchen counters out of." Isn't really that far from "we'll make a guitar out of the same stuff they make kitchen cabinets out of." Those old Dan-Os and Silvertones were, in intent if not execution, the exact same as these guitars. That's not conjecture, that's not me theorizing, that's historical fact.
You're either being disingenuous or delusional. Every single part of those classic Dan-Os and Silvertones were made because they were cheap. I am not making this up. The lipstick tube pickup was created because someone figured out that actual discarded lipstick tubes were an alright, cheap, way to make pickup housings. Those guitars were built to a price point. Any innovations they had came from the need to make the guitars as cheaply as possible. That is all. These were guitars that were made to be cheap, disposable learning tools for kids to get on Christmas morning. They were never meant to be classics.
What Gibson has done is taken their designs and built them to a price point. The same as Silvertone did back in the day.
Also, Epiphones, Kramers, Steinbergers and Tobiases don't come out of Kalamazoo
Well, neither do Gibsons, being as how they're in Nashville.
Now Heritage, those come from Kalamazooo
Right, 'cos you'd buy a guitar from Circuit City? Someone in this thread stated straight out that all they needed to know that it was sold at Toys R Us.
I don't think the $100 price point is one where a lot of innovation happens, innovation costs money. Money that you don't have to tack on to a guitar that you're selling for the bear minimum anyway.
These guitars aren't for people who care about how innovative the guitar is. If you want innovation, get the digital Gibson. These are, by and large, for kids who will take their first guitar lesson on them.
's Funny, still seems like a bunch of people yelling about POS guitars to me.
I wish my Global became a classic so I could find a pickup for it.