Vintage guitars for sale: Kalamazoo

The word Kalamazoo, in guitar circles at least, is synonomous with quality. Kalamazoo was, of course, the American town in which Orville Gibson started producing musical instruments, and the birthplace of all those classic models for which the brand is known. In the 1930s and early 1940s Gibson also built guitars branded Kalamazoo. These were acoustic models built in the same plant, by the same workforce.

Jump forward to the 1960s, and the massive desire for student grade electric guitars lead Gibson to briefly revive the Kalamazoo brand. This time they took a leaf from Fender's book, designing easy-assembled instruments using quality Gibson parts, and finished by a largely unskilled workforce in a separate plant from the high end guitars bearing the Gibson name. These were great instruments for the price, though not of the quality of the earlier Kalamazoo guitars.