By this time, one of the most glaring deficiencies of new Les Pauls (compared to the originals) was the humbucking pickup. Here follows a note on Tim Shaw… "Whether it was rivalry between plants or increased market awareness, the Nashville plant jumped into the reissue action in 1980. Yeah, to attract attention because they'd never seen anything like that." A lot of dealers hung them in their store windows." VG. But I don't think they thought much of them as guitars to listen or to play. So the question was, what about the other two? We cut 80 Flying V's in the first cutting. Dealers would visit our booth to look at them, and our salesmen were trying to sell them, but when it was all over and we got back to Kalamazoo and checked sales, the only thing that had really sold was the Flying V. everybody at the show was walking around saying, "Have you seen those crazy things Gibson's got?". We had all of the new shapes on display at a road show in New York, and they did just what we thought they'd do. We made probably four or five at the time. "Has everything about the possible existence of Moderne prototypes been noted? If such a guitar exists, it is considered the Holy Grail of collectible guitars." TM. I wanted to come up with some guitar shapes that were different from anything else." VG. Fender was talking about how Gibson was a bunch of old fuddie-duddies, and when I heard that through the grapevine, I was a little peeved. "Obviously, I need to ask you about those late 50's futuristic guitars, the Flying V, the Explorer, and any Moderne prototypes since they've become such collector's items." TM. Here follows an excerpt from an interview between Vintage Guitar Magazine and Ted McCarty… The Gibson Moderne was designed and invented by Ted McCarty, President of Gibson Guitar Corporation through the golden age of electric guitars from 1950-1966. The original United States Patent Office diagram, dated January 7th, 1958 is reproduced on p. Moderne - Holy Grail of Vintage Guitars, p.
And we also had to come up with the electric circuit and control parts based upon the Flying V or the Explorer."" (Ronald Lynn War. Tim Shaw remembers: "We made the head a little bit smaller than the patent application diagram because it was too big for the production line. Tim Shaw who worked on this project said the reissue model was built only based upon the patent application because nobody had any idea of the original. The reissue of the Moderne was introduced only as a limited edition. There was no one on the staff at Gibson from those days who remembers how many of them were built or how the guitar was made. "The reissue Moderne guitar has a very mysterious history.
Blue Book of Electric Guitars, 11th Edition, p.
This is a reissue of the 1958 Moderne, with specifications from the blueprint." (S.P. "Initially there were 500 guitars to be produced, but only 143 were actually manufactured. Here is some additional history on the Moderne and other guitars of the Heritage series: