The Steel Guitar Forum

Why doesn't ShoBud start building guitars again?? Who has name rights? I always thought they built a great guitar.

I heard that some big company bought Sho-Bud to keep them out of business. The same company later bought MCI/EMCI and did the same thing.

Maybe it was MARRS music !

Tony, you jokester.
Well now that Fender owns Gretsch (is the ink dry?) ("$1500 FOR A BOLT OYWN!!?? AHM UH GITTIN' ME A GRRRRRETSCH!!!" Sorry folks; I went ballistic there for a second; it was someone I heard awhile back. Never mind.) who owns the rights to Sho-Bud, then I guess the question would be what is Fender going to do with Sho-Bud's factory down there in Magazine, AR, yes? Ok fellers, jump in...

Looking at the Fender "Custom Shop" guitars... how about a "Relic" Professional complete w/ bar dings and everything? Think about a "NOS" ´62 Permanent or a "Closet Classic" ´66 Fingertip! This offers a whole new world of possibilities! The prices would probably be equal to the new MSA...

For whatever it's worth, I met Fred Gretsch last January at the NAMM show, and asked him about this, and he told me there were no plans to resurrect Sho-Bud. Subsequently I've read that there ARE new Sho-buds being made.

I have no idea what's going on.

It seems to me a giant like Fender probably isn't interested in investing the cost of manufacturing in a product whose expected sales figures are likely quite low compared the pieces of crap six-strings they sell these days out of their cheap Mexican labor pool. They can't even make a decent banjo, for God's sake. If Gretsch found good reason to let the Sho-Bud brand wither away, I can't see Fender nursing the name back to good health. If anything, they'd probably make some embarrassingly shoddy copy of the original. So sad...