Gibson Custom Shop 1963 Firebird V reissue. Limited Edition. VOS.

There is no other guitar that looks or sounds like a ‘reverse’ Gibson Firebird. In the early 1960’s Gibson was losing a lot of ground to Fender in the solid body electric guitar stakes and wanted a modern looking guitar that could potentially take on the then top of the line Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar.

By chance Gibson President Ted McCarty was to meet car designer Ray Dietrich and subsequently talked him into designing an all new guitar from the ground up, and so the Firebird was born. Visually the Firebird may have taken its initial cues from Gibson’s futuristic but poor selling Explorer from a few years earlier, or from an upside down Fender Jazzmaster/Jaguar body, but there is an inevitable and undeniable 1950’s American car influence in its final design. The Firebird was also the first Gibson guitar to be offered in a range of Custom Colours at an extra cost on the standard sunburst finish – again another nod to Fender. Like Fenders from this period Gibson Custom Colour guitars are far scarcer that their standard sunburst counterparts and now command much higher prices amongst collectors.

True to history this Gibson Custom Shop ’63 Custom Colour Firebird V reissue is one of a very limited edition that was unveiled at Winter NAMM 2020. This particular one here was one of the actual show guitars that was displayed on Gibson’s much talked about wall of Custom Colour Firebirds at NAMM. See Guitar Magazine’s full review and lowdown on these limited edition models.

Sonically a reverse Firebird sits somewhere between the generic Fender and Gibson tone. The Firebird’s mini-humbucking pickups (which are a completely different design to the mini-humbuckers of the late 60’s and 70’s) have a lower output and different configuration than normal full-sized humbuckers. This results in a much brighter and chimey sound. The closest description we can think of the reverse Firebird sound would be like a more aggressive sounding Fender Telecaster, which lends itself very well to certain styles. It does clean up well for some very nice tones in the bridge, middle and neck positions but these guitars should be let loose with a healthy dose of overdrive in our opinion ;-)

Then there is the cool factor. There is no denying that a Custom Colour reverse Firebird is a very cool customer indeed.

This guitar is in mint condition with no visible wear at all. As a very limited edition and an actual NAMM show guitar this is sure to become a future collectors piece.

Comes with the original hard shell case, Certificate Of Authenticity and all of the case candy.