Never owned a G&L and I'm a Fender fan for life BUT Fender buying them up would be an awful idea.
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I'm obligated to request visual evidence
Well, I spent the whole weekend hemming and hawing over my next Build-to-order for nothin, it seems!
G&L has the product designs to be big They were never able to do impactful marketing, in my opinion. They also had a helluva time delivering BTOs the way that they were ordered.
If whoever buys them can take care of those two issues, I see big things in the future for them.
If whoever buys them can take care of those two issues, I see big things in the future for them.
This is disappointing to hear. I'm very sympathetic to people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. On a personal level, I am in the market for a new 5-string and was considering my first G&L product. Too late? Terrible when businesses that make good products fail.
I guess I won't hang the G&L bass I can't get just above the Greenboy fEARful I'll never have...
I guess I won't hang the G&L bass I can't get just above the Greenboy fEARful I'll never have...
He's right, I practically live up the street from the factory, it is expensive EVERYWHERE around here. Even two hours away in the desert it's expensive. My heart goes out to these people.
I hear ya, but the JB-5 is a better passive J fiver than any Fender offering.
If that's how it goes, I guess Fender would market the L2000 and maybe the L1000 as some sort of "Leo Fender special models "and jack the price way up.
I wouldn't hesitate to buy one off the rack right now 'cause of this unless you really feel you're gonna need customer service/warranty repair for some unforseen reason. Personally I've owned 5 G&Ls, 4 of them bought new, over the last 10-15 years and not one had an issue of any kind.
G&L is known for excellent 34" scale five strings. My G&L fivers (JB-5, Kiloton V, and previously L2500) are my favorite five strings I've ever owned (and I've owned Fender, Dingwall, and others). Blows any Fender five string outta the water IMO.
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Part of me suspects that if they don't close this is where it will go.
If they do re-open next week, it may be time to place an order for a M2K.
I'm guessing the BTO days are done. Assuming they stick around, my guess is that we'll end up with essentially the Tribute line and the Fullerton Deluxe or CLF line of pre-determined specs and limited finish options.
Had you bought a few more, we might not be having all this discussion about what's going on with the company…
I only bought one of them new, all the others were bought used over the past 5 years.
It's a wonderfully romantic notion; but given EBMM is such a tightly run ship, I just can't see that happening.
Never mind the belt-tightening measures EBMM took, to weather the storm that was the pandemic, and all the consequent increases in the cost of doing business (measures, that in terms of product portfolio, are only recently starting to relax) : just look at how EBMM are prepared to be ruthlessly business minded towards any of their own beloved products that fail to meet sales expectations, within a very short space of time.
Sterling Ball has made no secret of how tough it is for a musical instrument company to do business in California; I don't see him, or his kids wanting to run two musical instrument companies in California - not least if one of them requires significant attention, and restructuring to get the ship righted.
It's way too risky, and a ton of additional work, and stress.
That said, I'd be surprised if the Ball Family didn't swoop in and recover the StingRay prototype - assuming the fate of CLF is tied to the fate of G&L.
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I'm just speculating here, but I suspect a big part of the reason we see so few G&L instruments in music stores, is cartel behaviour.
I have no first hand experience of this, but I've heard from people in the trade that Fender is pretty bad at that sort of thing - if you want to become one of their dealers, they have veto over competing brands that you stock (and G&L is one of the brands that they forbid their dealers from carrying)... or so I've heard.
Here in the UK, I haven't seen a store selling new USA G&L instruments for a while (guitarguitar used to, then they became really scarce about 2 years ago, and now there are none), only the Tribute series are carried, and only by a handful of retailers like guitarguitar, Anderton's, gear4music.
I could maybe see someone like Yamaha having an interest in buying G&L, if they consider that their own instruments already have about as much market penetration as they're ever likely to get - but owning an American brand, and one with just about the most prestigious provenance imaginable, would open up a whole other market for them (and they probably have the muscle to combat any cartel behaviour - if indeed it even exists), provided the massive amount of work, and investment is worth their while.
Most likely it will be Fender who hoovers up the brand, and provided they don't just kill it, that opens up possibilities for some product experimentation - for example the Fender Dimension would have probably been a better fit for a G&L logo on the headstock, and wouldn't have met with the Fender traditionalists backlash / confusion / indifference that killed it.
But I'm hopeful that it will survive without external assimilation, and buck it's ideas up.
Sick. Not sure what else to say.
Actually… thanks for the photo! Is this the only model you collect in quantities or are there others? The L2500 is one of my all time favorites.
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Its true I heard exactly this from my local G&L, former Fender dealer.
No other collections, I have a Warwick Thumb BO 5, an EB Bongo HH5, and Schecter Hellraiser 5. I also have three different AEB 5s
Right now G&L is just one more small, innovative instrument maker, and apparently a struggling one, so I wonder if Fender would consider buying them. Fender sub-brands like Jackson/Charvel aim for particular niches (flashy hard rock, classic rock, metal), but G&L doesn't have a similar profitable product focus that would fill a marketing hole for Fender.
When Leo sold Fender Musical Instruments the 1965 agreement explicitly prevented the Fender name be used or marketed with on any future instruments or businesses. So anyone buying G&L would basically be buying an apparently chaotic (from inside info posted here and from former employees on Reddit) business that can't leverage Leo's name, only his legacy.
