You know how it goes – sometimes you’re surfing eBay and you come across a cool vintage death metal shirt, and sometimes you come across 30 years worth of your own company’s amplfier designs that have since been lost to time. Or at least the latter is how it went for Gibson VP of Product, Mat Koehler, recently.
According to Koehler in an Instagram post, he and the brand recovered the entire Gibson Brands amplifier and effects archive from 1936 to 1969 thanks to one former employee holding on to them and eventually listening ’em on eBay.
“In my time at Gibson, I have been fortunate enough to help preserve and organize our historic archives as well as to recover historic documents and artifacts that went missing long ago (as you may have seen in some of my other posts). The latest discovery is unbelievable,” wrote Koehler.
“Long story very short, we recovered the entire Gibson Brands amplifier and effects archive from 1936-1969… filled with schematics, blueprints, parts lists, work instructions, promo photos, frequency analyses, notes, memos, and more. They went from Kalamazoo to Chicago as CMI became the service center, then Moog and Sundown Technology when the service center changed again. Incredibly, a former employee held onto the records and listed them on eBay, which is how I caught wind of it. Special thanks to @thejdavidson and @arthurforni for making sure these got home safely. #vintagegibson”
Even if you’re not into vintage gear or Gibson, it’ll be incredible to see what the company can do with all this lost information!
