Gibson’s Left-Handed Neglect: A Century of Calculated Exclusion

Anyone who knows me knows I have strong feelings about Gibson Guitars. It was their refusal to make left handed Explorer guitars that motivated me in the first place to make left handed guitars, starting with left handed Explorers. Their neglect gave birth to Gaskell Guitars.

For decades, Gibson’s lefty offerings have been thin, inconsistent, and often the first thing cut when times get tough. It took over 50 years for a left-handed Firebird to appear.

This is the legacy of Gibson. It’s institutional neglect, spanning decades of low-volume production, abrupt cancellations, and a Custom Shop that treats “non-standard” lefties as a huge inconvenience.

"The Big Lie"

Gibson’s perennial excuse—“tooling and production complexities”—is corporate fiction.

The fact that the left-handed market segment makes up only 2% to 10% of all guitar players is not a technical barrier; it is the convenient excuse Gibson uses to justify its ethical failure. 

For a company with the vast resources and engineering pedigree of Gibson, the minor adjustments required—flipping templates, re-indexing CNC machines, and securing readily-available component hardware—are trivial manufacturing challenges. These procedures are commonplace in every major modern factory that manages custom orders, signature lines, or even minor model variations.

The obstacle has never been technical capability. It has been willingness.

Ending Left Handed Production and Bullying Other Brands

When Gibson hit financiial troubles in 2016, amid poor quality control and federal scrutiny over illegal tonewoods, the company’s response was unequivocal: all left-handed Gibson and Epiphone production was terminated permanently. One year later, Gibson filed for bankruptcy. The message was unmistakable—left-handed players were expendable.

The new management has taken left handed guitar more seriously, opening up the choices via their entry-level Epiphone brand. However, the new Gibson seems to be more interested in bullying guitar manufacturers who make similar products with "cease and desist" orders, despite some of these brands having their own lines for over 40 years without harassment ever before. Case in point: Dean Guitars. Gibson won the court case (sort of) and now no one can legally make guitars that look like Explorers or Flying Vs. Ok, but where are your lefty Explorers? Lefty Flying Vs? Lefty Firebirds?

The company will litigate to monopolize a silhouette yet declines to make it accessible to 10% of its potential market.

The Community Verdict

“Gibson abandoned Tony Iommi’s legacy.”

“Custom Shop is a scam for lefties.”

“Vintage LH Gibsons? Nearly impossible to find.”

— Reddit, The Gear Page, SevenString.org

Left-handed players don’t just feel forgotten — they’re priced out, waitlisted, and gaslit by a brand that built the first left-handed guitar in 1915… then spent 110 years perfecting how to ignore them.

The Stockholm Syndrome Brigade

And then there are the Gibson lefty fanboys. These are the players who, after decades of being ignored, mocked, and overcharged, still defend the brand with the fervor of a cult member praising their captor.

Symptoms of Severe Gibson Stockholm Syndrome:

Symptom	Description
Brand Apologia	“They only make 25 LH models because quality.” (Translation: “Please, sir, may I have another reissue?”)
Vintage Worship	Dropping $8k on a 1970s LH SG that Gibson made by accident, then bragging like it was a gift.
Custom Shop Delusion	Calling Gibson to beg for a non-catalog LH Explorer, getting laughed off the phone, then posting: “They’re just preserving tradition.”
Epiphone Excuses	“The LH Epiphone Les Paul is basically the same!”
Company Gaslighting	“I was told that lefties are more expensive to make because they have to shut down the factory and retool to do a run of lefties. We should be thankful for whatever we can get." (Lies. CNC is CNC. It's a few mouse clicks and then push the same button to start the machine. There is no "re-tooling.")

These loyalists aren’t just fans — they’re hostages with a solid confirmation bias in play. They’ve internalized the abuse so thoroughly that any crumb — a single LH Les Paul Standard in Heritage Cherry — feels like a royal decree. They’ll wait 18 months for a Murphy Lab LH, pay a 40% premium, and thank Gibson for the privilege.

“I waited two years for my LH ’59 reissue. Worth it.” — Actual quote from a lefty forum, 2024

Diagnosis: Terminal Stockholm Syndrome.

Prescription: Find your dignity.

Conclusion

For more than a century, Gibson’s relationship with left-handed players has swung between neglect and outright dismissal, interrupted only by brief flashes of interest when it was convenient for the company’s bottom line.

Lefties have learned not to expect anything consistent, affordable, or thoughtfully developed — and many have simply moved on to builders who take them seriously. Yet the passion of the left-handed community remains strong, and its expectations are no longer quiet. The days when left-handed musicians would accept scraps, inflated prices, or “take-it-or-leave-it” custom-shop offers are over.

And that is why I am here, and have been since 2007.