Gibson Spirit

The Gibson Spirit was a guitar model sold under Gibson and Epiphone USA nameplates in the 1980s. This article does not refer to the made-in-China Spirit guitar sold under the Gibson Baldwin Music Education nameplate.

Origins

The Gibson Spirit is a lesser-known model produced from 1982 to 1986 by Gibson in the Nashville, Tennessee, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, factories. It was initially produced in the Kalamazoo factory under the Epiphone nameplate. In response to poor sales, some Epiphone models were changed to Gibson, and a faint Epiphone logo can be seen under the Gibson logo on the peghead. Later models were produced as Gibsons in Nashville. The Spirit appears to have been modelled after the Les Paul Junior double-cutaway model, with the primary differences being the use of modern single-coil and humbucker pickups, and cutaways at the 20th fret rather than the 22nd.

Models and variations