1991 GIBSON FIREBIRD V

A stylish 1991 Gibson Firebird V Celebrity Series, in excellent original condition.

This guitar comes from a short series produced in the early 90s and featuring four models that marked the history of Gibson in the second half of the 20th century: the Les Paul, the SG Standard, the Firebird V and the Chet Atkins. Each of the guitars comes in an Ebony finish with a white pickguard and an ebony fingerboard decorated with trapezoid inlays – we are instantly taken back to the tuxedo appearance that was so dear to musician Les Paul and which he brought to light when he defined with Gibson the specifications for the Custom variant of the range bearing his name.

For the rest, the guitar conforms in every way to the Firebird V as it was introduced in 1963: at the time, anxious not to be left behind by Fender and their new offset models, Gibson called on the creator Ray Dietrich who, after a long career in automobile design, was enjoying a peaceful retirement in the city of Kalamazoo (as luck would have it!). Ted McCarty, sales director at Gibson, convinced Dietrich to contribute his experience to the design of a new line of instruments, and the result was a solidbody guitar with an asymmetrical body and employing an innovative construction style: the body was made of a central block running from the top of the head to the bottom with fins attached to either side. The orientation of the headstock is reversed, hence the moniker reverse-headstock, and we find banjo-type tuners on the back of the headstock. The guitar sports two mini-humbucker pickups connected to the standard wiring with volume and tone controls, a stop-tailpiece associated with a Tune-o-Matic bridge – all of these hardware elements are gold plated. The guitar has been fully optimized for playing in our workshop, with fret planning job, full intonation and action setup, to achieve a perfectly adjusted playing base.

Sold in its original Gibson case.