Gibson
Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as the "Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd." in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to make mandolin-family instruments. Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian. In 1944, Gibson was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI), which was acquired in 1969 by Panama-based conglomerate Ecuadorian Company Limited (ECL), that changed its name in the same year to Norlin Corporation. Gibson was owned by Norlin Corporation from 1969 to 1986. In 1986, the company was acquired by a group led by Henry Juszkiewicz and David H. Berryman.
Gibson Spirit
The Gibson Spirit is a lesser-known model produced from 1982 to 1986 by Gibson in the Nashville, Tennessee, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, factories. It was initially produced in the Kalamazoo factory under the Epiphone nameplate. In response to poor sales, some Epiphone models were changed to Gibson, and a faint Epiphone logo can be seen under the Gibson logo on the peghead. Later models were produced as Gibsons in Nashville. The Spirit appears to have been modelled after the Les Paul Junior double-cutaway model, with the primary differences being the use of modern single-coil and humbucker pickups, and cutaways at the 20th fret rather than the 22nd.