I'd love to see that quote in context because it doesn't make economic sense to deliberately ship an inferior product to a particular vendor.
That said, New Hartford had annual dealer events where dealers could come and hand pick the specific instruments that they wanted to sell. The guitars that were not handpicked were then released to other dealers as orders came in. It is real easy to speculate that the dealers picked out the best instruments and so the generalization that you got the best Guilds from dealers who attended the events and the inferior Guilds from other dealers seems true. I know if I walked into a store and the dealer showed me an instrument and said they personally picked it out at the factory I'd go with that instrument rather than order another one.
So Ren's story could have some truth and make sense if what is really happening is that other dealers picked out the guitars they sold whereas GC's order was just filled from whatever was in stock.
The comment was from Twocorgiis from a conversation he had with Ren at one of the LMGs, it was about one of his Gibsons but I don't recall which model right at the moment.
I've brought up that "sorting" scenario before myself, because of that comment. Edit: In fact I just saw he repeated it yesterday, in post #2
here:
I remember when I met Ren Ferguson at LMG III, and I mentioned how many underwhelming Gibson acoustics I had played at GC. He told me "Guitar center is not where you want to buy a Gibson", and that has always stayed with me.
I still think it's not unreasonable to suspect they may sort for "Very Good" examples (as opposed to sorting out sub-par examples) at some point near end of production, and maybe only for certain models.
Remember in Westerly for example one guy used to string up the flattops guitars (Don't think it was Hideglue, think it might have been WorkedinWesterly) and made the comment once that he was surprised sometimes that a piece he'd strung the day before that sounded like a dog had woken up overnight to discover it was a guitar, or something like that.
Anyway all I'm saying is that that would be a convenient opportunity to "sort for
really good ones" without really adding to labor overhead.
For balance though your comment that perhaps Gibson also invites dealers to the plant to select their product has equal or maybe even better practicality for Gibson, and it'd be interesting to know if they actually do that.
Also I don't think it's as much "
Deliberately shipping
inferior product" as that it's the product that's just good enough to make the cut (by their standards) and gets sent to the warehouse for inventory for any old order as opposed to the examples they may set aside (or allow to be hand-picked) for certain dealers.
Wouldn't surprise me if they have a tier system for dealers with exceptional sales volume or history or even other criteria for recognition which allows them certain extra privileges from the factory.
It's not (or at least "wasn't", 20 years ago) uncommon in computer and car dealerships for example.
"Just putting it out there", not trying to "prove" anything.
In fact just saw yet another post from Beecee in that thread I linked above and perhaps what's really going on is this:
A local store that supplies a lot of student models is an authorized dealer for Bach, (as is GC), I spoke w/the gent who inspects and sets up all incoming...he says he will send back a few every year..even on a relatively high end trumpet there are duds.
Not to dump on GC but I don't think they would do that prior to sending one to me.
Along with Grassdog's comment which also seems to be a quite likely scenario and goes along with any number of reports here over the years:
As far as Ren's comment about Gibsons at GC, I'm guessing that he'd say that about any of the premium brands. In general, those places don't put a lot of effort in making sure the instruments are set up properly and strings are old and dead.
No judgements on anybody.
Just trying to figure out why GC would seem to be the purveyor of such a (comparatively) high percentage of what we would consider to be sub-par pieces.