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I've recently encountered a curious thing - a customer asked me if I could fit a humbucker pickup into a cigar box guitar that he'd just bought, and I said it depended on how it had been built, but I'd be happy to take a look at it and see what could be done. Nothing curious there, a bit of customisation/improvement work on another maker's guitar, the sort of stuff I do a fair bit of...but then he messaged me and told me the "brand" name and where he'd bought it, and warning bells started ringing.  The name is quite well known in the mainstream guitar world, and I was intrigued to hear that they might be making cigar box guitars. I checked their website - no cigar box guitars to be seen, and also checked the UK vendor's website  (they also sell on eBay). There was a fairly ordinary-looking cigar box guitar, proudly bearing a big injection moulded plastic logo on the headstock, and another unique identifying feature that tied-in with the name on the logo, and it was listed as an "officially licensed product". I was really intrigued, as it looked like a typical hobby-made 3 stringer, but with this brand name on it: to me it just didn't look right. I sent an email to the owners of the brand name to let them know, because  from the photos this looked strange, and not the sort of quality I'd expect such a company to associate themselves with.

Anyhow, a few days later, the guitar was brought round to me for me to have a look at,. and just as I thought, it was an ordinary homemade guitar with "that logo" on the headstock. It was OK, like dozens of simple home-made guitars I'd seen before, not the worst I'd ever seen, but pretty typical for a home-made CBG. It did have some serious flaws, such as a zero fret with no "spacer nut" or string guides to keep the strings from flopping about sideways, so that really didn't work at all, and loads of other niggling problems. The strings fitted to it were the wrong gauge for the quoted tuning, so the owner had broken one trying to bring it to pitch and given up after that. There were a number of other faults, the sort of thing everyone encounters when trying to make a CBG, but certainly not the sort of thing I'd expect to see on a guitar bearing a famous brand name. My customer told me that he'd learned that the company selling them had bought the nameplates (and another unique identifying component) from the US company and they'd allowed them to put them on these cigar box guitars. This seemed like commercial folly by the US company, not to mention it must have needed a load of B.S. from the UK retailer to convince the US brand that they could make a product worthy of their name.

Anyhow, it seems like the famous US company aren't too happy about this, and will be talking to the UK traders about it. I hope this gets nipped in the bud, as it really isn't healthy and does no good to anyone.

The whole affair  really got to me, that someone would stoop so low to low as to con a brand with a good reputation to allow their name to be put on something that was clearly not in the same league as their other products. My customer had obviously bought the guitar on the strength of the brand name, but it fell short of his expectations. As for the potential damage to my business, it's fairly incidental and doesn't really affect me much, as we still can't keep up with the demand for our guitars, so I've no axe to grind there. However, I'm sure some people may be swayed by the brand name and buy one, only to be disappointed with what they get, and this could take sales away from other honest hardworking people.

Everyone I know who makes cigar box guitars is rightly proud of what they do, whether it's just hobby makers doing things for themselves, or to earn a little money, right the way through to the handful of full-time professionals, and most people like to put their own name on what they make. This development really stinks - it brings down the name of a well known brand, it gives the CBG movement a bad name, and it demeans what most people are trying to do, whether they are just expressing themselves and enjoying their craft, or trying to make a living through something they are passionate about.

I've kept names out of this, because I don't want to  point the finger, I just wanted to bring this to people's attention. However, I will say that I think this is a downright abuse of a brand name, and a shameful attempt to exploit a the name of a well-loved and well-regarded company by sticking a logo onto the headstock of a very ordinary and flawed instrument. If that UK maker or seller is on here, I appeal to the better part of your conscience and ask you to please stop doing this.