Gibson Explorer Guitars at Collect-Guitars.Com

Return to Gibson Guitars

Explorer by Gibson

The Gibson Explorer is an electric guitar that made its debut in 1958. The Explorer offered a radical, futuristic body design, much like its sibling, the Flying V. The Explorer was the final development of a prototype design which years later Gibson marketed under the name Futura.

The Explorer's initial run was unsuccessful, and the model was discontinued in 1959. In 1976, Gibson began reissuing the Explorer after other guitar companies had success selling similar designs. The Explorer became especially popular among the hard rock and heavy metal musicians of the 1970's and 80's.

Gibson produced very few Explorers during the 1958 run of the original Korina wood model. Because production records are unclear, it is not known exactly how many were made, but the original run total has been estimated at less than 50. The extreme rarity of this guitar has increased its value significantly and made original Explorers with verifiable provenance highly prized among collectors, with values well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After the first few guitars, the Explorer had a long drooping headstock with the tuners placed in a straight line on one side (referred sometimes as 'banana' and 'hockey-stick'). This design has been popularized by Grover Jackson, founder of Jackson Guitars and other electric guitar makers such as Kramer and Hamer 20 years later. However, the very earliest Explorers made between 1957 and spring 1958 featured an unusual split-shaped head with the tuners placed in a standard 3+3 arrangement, carried over from the Explorer prototype (better known as the Futura).

In 2009, the company released three new versions of the guitar, the first of which was an Explorer version of the Gibson Robot Guitar. Another model, the Tribal Explorer, features a Kahler-style tremolo and tribal designs and lacks a pickguard. The final new 2009 model is the Holy Explorer, designed as a counterpart to the Holy V, and it has numerous notches cut right through the body of the guitar. After creating Matt Heafy of Trivium a white seven string Explorer, Gibson released a statement that they will make a production seven string Explorer. The production is aimed more towards the more metal players, having active pickups (81-7 bridge & 707 neck), no fretmakers on the fretboard, while maintaining the classic explorer characteristics, such as a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, 24-3/4 scale length, and a 12" radius. However, it is still unclear if Gibson will offer different colors besides black, and alternate fretboard species.

Gibson Explorer players include James Hetfield of Metallica, Brian Bell of Weezer, The Edge of U2, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, and Dave Keuning of The Killers.

Tweet | StumbleUpon | Digg | Reddit