(Los Angeles Times) What does a company do when it retrieves government-confiscated building materials? If that company is Gibson Guitar Corp., it makes guitars from it.
Late last year, the 120-year-old Nashville music company released a limited series of Les Paul, Explorer, SG and Flying V six-string guitars with fingerboards made from wood that federal agents had seized in factory raids.
The company produced 750 instruments for that first batch, which quickly sold out. Responding to continued demand, Gibson this year released about 1,000 more Government Series guitars, which sold out “in minutes,” according to Chief Executive Henry Juszkiewicz.
“We kept getting calls, and we had wood left over,” said Juszkiewicz, 60.
