If Yamaha ends up making Gibsons, they better still make them in America or the brand becomes pointless.
I've seen this sort of comment elsewhere, predominantly on Hamer pages. I really don't see why there's this issue with US guitar manufacturing = great, everywhere else (especially the far east, lol) = shit.
The argument with Hamer was always read that the US produced models were head and shoulders over Asian-built models, that's as maybe, but there's also this mindset in place where people treat 'imports' with contempt without even having laid eyes on one. Let's also not forget that one of your great American brands (cough, Fender, cough) were tantamount on shutting down Hamer.
With all due respect, it's too easy for people to bark out a statement that the
brand will become pointless if it's made in China, without any meat on the bone to back that up. All you'll have is a secondhand marketplace where guitars will be advertised as pre-Yamaha or whatever, just like the pre-CBS thing with Fender. It's also unlikely that US-made Gibsons will become unavailable to anyone who wants one. There's hundreds of thousands of them out there. Also, you've only got to look very briefly online to see how many people are raving over the new (Indonesian!) Epiphone Thunderbirds...I've seen more positivity about those than any US built Thunderbirds.
I do understand that most of the guys here are American and you're proud to own and play American-made instruments, but come on, it's not 1960, it's a global marketplace. We don't have any major guitar/bass manufacturing here in the UK, it's small number stuff (similar to Lull); Shuker, ACG etc. so for us at least, pretty much every instrument is an import, be it from Indonesia, South Korea, China or the US. I've had as many decent built US guitars as I have poor ones. It's about making music at the end of the day, not about the name on the headstock of the guitar!