WOW! This is blowing up the guitar community on social media. As of last Monday, it sure looks like G&L packed it in. No glossy statements, no farewell tour—just a whole lot of posts, texts, and “you seeing this?” messages ripping through forums and group chats.
If you’re newer to the brand, here’s the quick campfire version: after Leo sold Fender and did the Music Man thing, he teamed up with George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt and started G&L—the “G” and the “L” are literally George & Leo. They cranked out the S-style Legacy, the T-style ASAT, the funky-cool Comanche, and a pile of other sleepers that turn into lifers once you actually play one. Leo loved these so much he called them “the best instruments I’ve ever made.” And honestly, you can hear why—Magnetic Field Design pickups, the Dual-Fulcrum Vibrato, the Saddle-Lock bridge… it’s like he took the classic shapes and hot-rodded the guts.
The last few weeks have felt like watching storm clouds roll in over flat water: quiet at first, then darker every day. People were whispering about pay issues… then layoffs… then word that all the U.S. production folks got furloughed. Since last Monday, the chatter leveled up—posts saying the remaining team was let go and the company basically wound down. I’m not quoting any one source here—just telling you the tide of what everyone’s seeing and saying.
And here’s the weird, kind of spooky part:
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The official website is still up, but you can’t buy anything from it.
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Dealers look picked clean—lots of “out of stock” tags, and no one seems to be getting fresh boxes.
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All this hits during what should’ve been their 45th anniversary year. Talk about a gut-punch of timing.
What does it mean if you’re a player and not a boardroom person? Short version: if you’ve been eyeing a G&L, don’t sleep. Great guitars are great guitars whether a company is humming along or taking a dirt nap. If you find a USA model that plays like butter and the price isn’t bonkers, grab it, set it up right, and ride. Tributes are still solid players too—buy them for how they feel through your amp, not for whatever panic price swings the internet tries to pull.
On parts and service: normal stuff (tuners, pots, jacks) is easy. The G&L-special sauce—MFD pickups, Saddle-Lock bridges, certain USA-only bits—might turn into a treasure hunt. Good news is, a solid luthier can keep these things surfing for decades. Worst case, you join the rest of us refreshing Reverb at 2am looking for that one bridge plate like it’s a vintage fin for your longboard.
Resale will probably get weird for a bit. Some sellers will toss moon-landing prices at ordinary guitars; some legit rare birds will go nuclear. Don’t let FOMO blow your budget. If you’re buying to play, you’re the winner either way. If you’re buying to flip, just remember tides go out as fast as they come in.
Will the brand rise again? Wouldn’t shock me. The G&L name, the designs, the IP—that’s real value. Maybe someone scoops it up, maybe it relaunches, maybe it lives on in a different form. For now, we’re in the “huh?” phase where everyone’s reading tea leaves and arguing in the comments.
I’ll leave you with this: Leo Fender wasn’t just making replicas of his past—G&L was his late-career obsession with making things better. Tighter hardware. Smarter pickups. Bridges that actually do what they promise. You feel that when you strum a good ASAT or kick the Dual-Fulcrum and land right back in tune. That spirit doesn’t vanish because a payroll department went dark. It’s in the instruments already out in the wild—and maybe that’s the best place for it anyway: in our hands, on our stages, sweating through bar gigs and beach jams.
So yeah—WOW is right. The feed’s on fire, the site’s still standing but the shelves are empty, and the 45th turned into a wake. If a good G&L crosses your path, plug it in. If you already own one, give it a fresh set of strings and play the hell out of it tonight. Leo would’ve wanted that.
Check Brett Schull’s YouTube post for some more insights on G&L shutting down.
Cheers,
Gramps 🏄♂️🎸
