The Gibson website with the big red guitar pick was actually the second site design at Gibson. The original home page had a Gibson logo plus all the logos that were later relegated to the "Friends" page. Gibson actually hosted these pages for these companies. The original web group was put together and managed by Mike Lawson, who now owns Music Merchandise Review. I was managing that group by the time the website changed to the one featured in this vid. We thought we were pretty hip at the time.

I agree that this stuff is much more fun to look at as a group. For the most part I would not have the first notion of the origin of these guitars, that’s why I come here for my daily dose!

In my study hall class in 97 I would go to the gibson website, get one photo to upload then that hour period was over. 😂

@scottbogfoot

2 жыл бұрын

I was banned from printing tabs from harmonycentral in school around that time😂 apparently I was costing a fortune in ink 😂😂😂

@stepvanjoe3469

2 жыл бұрын

We were not "allowed " to print unless we paid 10 cents per page😆

@wesleyalan9179

2 жыл бұрын

@@scottbogfoot ....haha,me too!😅🤣

@f3uibeghardt522

Жыл бұрын

In 1997, I used to get up in the morning before school to start a download of the "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" music video on Quicktime. I came back from school hoping it would've downloaded fully, but it would play the first 2 seconds of it and then the torn film reel icon would come up showing it didn't download. This happened to me a 100 times.

This was a lot of fun! I really hope you’ll do the next decade. I’ve used Wayback Machine for other things - it’s a great way to revisit life at the internet’s infancy, which I was part of as we had a computer with internet capabilities as of October ‘91 when I was in the 5th grade. Might wanna tag Gibson to these Wayback videos you’re doing. The comments and look back may be very useful to them. I agree that a blog with news about the CEO, staff, and the general Gibson company would humanize them more. I know they attempt to make videos and use social media, but none of their content take the angle of human interest stories within the company - they only look at their artists, the general gear, interesting shops and places tied to Gibson, etc. They should show customers what the people at the company are doing at work and beyond the factory/office walls, feature the guitar makers and experts (other than Jim Decola, who btw gave the factory tour when I was there around 2007-ish), etc. It would really help their image a great deal. I’m even thinking about the way Fender has their Fender Play instructors interact with those taking part in their app during “office hours,” both by live streams and written comments, which gives customers a human link to part of the brand. Gibson could do something similar with the actual staff at the factory (rather than music instructors, as they don’t have such a program) where people can regularly see what Gibson is doing, ask questions, and talk about all kinds of stuff (guitar or otherwise). Humanizing, along with producing amazing guitars, definitely would translate to sales. Thanks again! Really enjoyed this vid!

Ahhh I remember those days. Remember " Newsgroups"? My first Ebay purchase through my sister's account was a Hohner red metal Melodica for $13. A great instrument for putting through filtering to simulate strings. My sister was one of the first 500 Sellers, not $toresellers, but literal sellers. She'd upload her scanned film camera pictures overnight through an insanely slow dial up modem. Walgreens had developing in about an hour.

This was a fun episode, I totally think you should do a 2000s version

Thanks for the trip down the memory lane. I was constantly surprised by how many of these articles and photos I could recall. Being a Gibson fan was quite a sizable part of my growing up!

as a youngster in the early aughts I spent a lot of time looking at guitars on the internet. Manufactures websites, and Ed Roman's site where he had probably the best photos of guitars on the internet at the time.

TrogDog! My man!

I got one of those Gibson Fruit Of The Loom The Hawks guitars!! It’s really a nice playing guitar!! It’s got the fruit of the loom emblem on the headstock as well. I will think that the 1999 picture with the hawk in it could be from 1997 because my guitar was made in 97

Guitar Show case in San Jose is definitely still there. They have an incredible collection of vintage to view / buy. I go there to browse all the time.

This is SOOO cool. I imagine spending several hours in the future, looking at old website snapshots.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane! I started to play guitar right at the tail end of this era and the ones I remember most from from this video were the Gothic series. I definitely drooled over a couple of those as I was plugging away on my first steel string.

I remember this website. In 1997, I didn’t have a computer at home, and we had just gotten the internet at my high school. I used to eat my lunch in the library once or twice a week just to surf the web and look at guitar websites and download and print (dot matrix printer) guitar tabs off of OLGA.

I bought an LP Studio from the Gibson Auction site in '99 It actually went really well. I used it because back then you had to mail people a check on eBay and just cross your fingers that it gets shipped and Gibson let you just pay them directly.

@judgegroovyman

2 жыл бұрын

That seems more trustworthy to buy from Gibson. Cool choice and im glad it went well!

11:58 - I have an SX Flying V copy with that set of features, apart from having gold covered pickups and “SX” on the truss rod cover. I often wondered why the picked that particular combination of pick guard and hardware. What a weird model to copy.

The black sg in the blurry picture was a SG Sringray it was from the corvette themed guitars they made back in the 90's.

Paul Barker, formerly of Ministry, used to play the EB-750 live with Ministry. You can see him playing a black one and a burst one like the one you showed us on the Sphinctour 1996 DVD.

Isn’t the auction site right there at 2:18? There was a link for Gibson Global Auction 2nd in the list on the screen.

Wow this was around the same year I bought my first Gibson Les Paul! It was a cherry sunburst classic and I bought it at Guitar Emporium in Louisville Ky. In 1997, I can't remember what year it was I'm thinking it was a 92. Good old days back then!

@jonamason6658

2 жыл бұрын

Love that store! Is it still around? Been years since I've been there

@musclecarmitch908

2 жыл бұрын

@@jonamason6658 Yep, there still in business but it don't seem like they have as big of a selection as they used to. I always liked going to the Do Wop shop across the road from them too, but now they only rent musical equipment.

Please do a full review/tear down of a The Hawk model. I know they’re simple, but they’re such great bare bones rockers. There’s a Fruit of the Loom on reverb I do believe

@presmasterflash7555

2 жыл бұрын

Mines customized with a 500t bridge pickup, a Gibson mini humbucker (from a 97 sg deluxe) in the neck, Grover tuners, toggle moved to a Les Paul like location, old toggle location is neck volume, and a Schaller 456 bridge. Black, of course.

What a nostalgic episode... I actually prefer the minimal cataloge designs in th 90s than todays overloaded UI

The auction was there in 1997 in this video! 2:15 “Im not seeing any signs of their online marketplace” Then a few seconds later at 2:21 the second link is to the “Gibson Global Online Auction” but you didn’t see it. Maybe it was there earlier than you thought? Im not saying this to be critical just to talk about it to get to the bottom of it. This is really cool. Thanks!

I used the way back machine to look at 1999 Sweetwater so I could see the original advertisement for my SG.

Dude. Those Double Cut Studios were my teenage dream guitars. I vaguely remember visiting the Gibson website back then.

Guitar Showcase in San Jose is still open. I grew up in San Jose. I remember hearing that "The Boss" Bruce Springsteen visited there in the late 80s while on tour. I know you have connections all over the world. I just find it cool you know of this little store.something I'm familiar with.

Hey one of my local shops was on that dealer list! I almost positive they don't carry Gibson anymore though.

I graduated high school in 97, I’d gladly go back and put up with the shitty internet of those days.

I remember around this time or a little after, a friend of mine had a Les Paul Studio Lite. It was sort of a flip/flop finish. From what I remember it was navy-purple/blue metallic. I always wanted that guitar and this video reminded me of it. I also always wanted the blue teal flip/flop SG.

I remember in 1975 my friend got a new white les paul custom for$880.we thought that was much and it was.his house burnt and his next axe was a black 76 explorer that I bought in77 for$350 so he could buy a 77 strat.i still got the explorer. It was my first guitar and I just turned 59.

I just did this to look at squiers old guitars from the 2000s. Thanks for reminding me about the way back machine

Should try to do alot of the older guitar, amp and pedal brands from back then aswell. This could be a great series if you continued on

@synisterfish

2 жыл бұрын

"Alot" & "Aswell" sound like they're both characters in a detective agency tv-show from the 1990s...

@mangoberry2534

2 жыл бұрын

@@synisterfish Idk why but the names Harriot & Haswell popped up in my head after you mentioned that lol

Awesome review. Your enthusiasm is infectious.

HAHAHAHAHA... that "Friend" of Ron wood is Richard Lewis!!

There was a time when Company's had to do some real Leg work to promo new stuff. before the internet killed off PR with fan's/buyers.

Hey Trogly, what''s the guitar tuning on your outro music? I dig that 20 second riff!

Really interesting episode Austin. Fun looking back in time and learning about rare/unusual guitars. Well done!!

@5:34 ... that is the infamous Corevette Sting Ray SG guitar. Couldn't GIVE that thing away in 1998 haha! (seriously, could not give it away. Nobody wanted it)

i dont know about y'all guys but for me this is a beautiful nostalgia trip. Thank you Trogly

It used to take 40 minutes of dial-up tones just to download an image with a 28k modem and AOL

I still have my les Paul Pee Wee! That’s crazy that that guitar was on the website back in ‘97! That was my first ever guitar. I recently got it out and try to noodle around on it again but the tuners on it aren’t very good. They going out after every note I played.

I genuinely choked on my coffee when you said we broke through Y2K, hilarious!

Gretsch even has the 2005 price list up via the archive! I’ve hunted down details on my fiesta red avri from ‘99, and a bunch of other things over the years. Great resource

half my guitars including my gibson came from house of guitars. love those dudes

That's crazy to see Bizarre Guitar on there. I just bought my first Les Paul standard from them through Reverb a month ago. They had some great customer service. I named the guitar Reno because that's where it came from lol.

Shout out to Huber n Breese!! My first guitar lessons were in that store! They’re still going strong! Thanks Trogly!

The 2nd link at 2:20 shows the gibson Auction, you missed it early in the video

Loved going through all those sites

The Fruit of the Loom guitar, following the Orange County Choppers style of brand marketing. Nowadays they’re called collabs, like the Supreme NY/Fender collab. An all white Fender Stratocaster that’s quadruple the price because there’s a bogo under the neck pickup.

The '97 Ace Frehley Custom was definitely the coolest guitar they were offering...lol

I bought my Les Paul Studio Lite at Lidgett in council bluffs IA. It was basically the only store in town.

This was a lot of fun looking back!

0:52 trogly wore Pampers until he was 17 confirmed.

What would you think about reviewing some Gibson amplifiers I would really enjoy that I have a gibsonette g8 it's pretty awesome I'd like to check out a gold tone or the vintage Falcons. Thank's good video.

👍👍Thank you for introducing Wayback Machine👍👍

the fretboard and purple back on that 335 are sooo cool 😎 hate the top on it though haha

man i could watch this for maybe 4 more hours!

I live near Guitar Showcase. They’re still there.

This is actually really cool! Hope for more

Austin, You mentioned a Les Paul Lite in the video - I have a 1993 Les Paul Studio Lite with M3 Electronics in Cherry Sunburst. I don't need an appraisal or a value, but I'm willing to let you review it and show off how different the balsa wood guitars are.

@Trog

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the offer, but I'm waiting for the Classic version

You gotta try the new Custom Core line from Heritage

I really enjoyed this episode. Great history lesson. Their sales page was still in the early days of buying a guitar without seeing or playing it. People are over that now. Well most people... im not..haha

Cool, I found the page from 2005 with my LP Standard!

The first Les Paul he was talking about made me immediately think of the conch shell carved "Less Paul" like Justin Hawkins has.

Damn, I'd never heard of Swingmasters! But I wasn't into Rockabilly back then so I guess they just weren't on my radar. Slapped some Filter'trons and a Bigsby on my ES-137 (and a girlie sticker on the pickguard) and got the same thing for 1/3 the price.

When I bought my 1999 Gibson Les Paul Classic in Bullion Gold, I ordered it through Musician's Friend (who said the finish was made of or made using real gold). I don't know if it was them or Gibson themselves who offered it, but it came with a Gibson USA Zippo lighter, a Gibson USA notepad and Gibson USA pen. They tried to stiff me on that, but I called and said 'Where the hell is my free stuff you promised in the catalog? I paid $2,500 for this damned guitar.' They sent it to me, and I still have that stuff. I think Musician's Friend also threw in a free Fender AG-6 tuner in sparkle blue. I still have that, too.

Man I dunno what it is, have a bazillion hobbies for which I watch all kinds of content, Trogly's still top of the list!

I vaguely remember hearing about the Monster Flying V.

16:09 I wonder if this is the guitar the guy remembers. Memory is a funny thing.

13:09 omg, first I see a bunch of Ace Frehley LPs and now the page exactly one year before I was born 13:20 ok now the day after lol

Yup, onward through the wayback machine!

That black SG was a Corvette Sting Ray

One of the best videos you've done - really enjoyable and informative.

hey I've watched your channel for a bit of time now and i am a brand new guitar player and i wanted some advice on getting my first les Paul I'm not too much of and a guitar knowledgeable person but I know you are wise and knowledgeable

It doesnt feel that long ago that web pages looked like that, they still looked like that until like 2005.

That was BRILLIANT! Yes, please do it again.

Lidgett Music is still around. Nice guitar shop.

great episode! was fun to see all the history!

Glad you’re ok trogly! I began to worry when I didn’t see an upload for a while. U should have like a trogly signal to light up the sky like Batman

@seanc.5310

2 жыл бұрын

Same. I second the Trogly signal system

Pretty sure that black SG's inlays said 'STINGRAY'. Sure looked like the old Corvette font to me.

How much of guitars going up in value is due to mass inflation (especially in the last year) vs more demand for guitars?

@Floortile83

2 жыл бұрын

Are guitar collectors really making money or is it imaginary due to inflation?

Is that Richard Lewis with Ron Wood?

@johnrandy7140

2 жыл бұрын

I said the same thing! Where's Larry?

Hey I have one of those double cut studios a 1998 Cherry burst

What a video idea! So cool Trogly, congrats and thank you!

Very cool to the ancient internet. Great job Trogly!

Same. I just recently found BC Rich's old site and archives. Things have changed! Lol

14:35 Tommy Tallarico of Video Games live would perform onstage with one of those Spiderman LPs in earlier tours

great Episode Trog !

Suddenly struck me that this is the digital equivalent of poring over old print catalogs, so much detail is here that is only made more interesting by the passage of time.

Such an informative episode M

I remember this website!

Way big tangent, but I'm sure you'll do a show on it LOL. Guitar World article today titled : "Gibson releases 1:4-scale miniature models of Slash’s Les Paul and acoustic guitars"

The spider on the head stock from the Spiderman guitar should be used on a new Widow series!

Thoughts on the new Adam Jones customs ?

I take all my guitars to Make n Music for repairs and a yearly physical. Lots of cool and weird guitars for sale.

Sat down and played a Less Paul at a local shop not too long ago. It was really wild to see it feel it. The downside is it had those awful electronic tuners on it

LOL I have 25 of those collector cards but I don’t remember where I got them it was a long time ago.

Goin through the list of artists at the 99 namm show. And you highlighted my favourate band lol good find there . Monster magnet in a trogly vid . Sweet

Isn't the 347 the model that has pickup selection that is both on, both of on out of phase and off?

@marcraygun6290

2 жыл бұрын

Oops sorry that was the 340

I remember that site!