The Gibson Custom Shop has just made a generation of hard rock guitar players very happy with a VOS Reissue of the 1971 Flying V Medallion.
Well, let's make that generations, plural, because this marks the return of one of the most iconic electric guitars in rock history – and one of the rarest.
Gibson only made some 350 of them back in the day, originally to commemorate the 1972 Summer Olympics in Berlin, with each guitar featuring a freshly minted coin medallion on the upper wing.
Michael Schenker, then of UFO, got his hands on one. Schenker is pictured with it on the back cover art of UFO’s 1975 studio album, Force It. This was quite the image, and it caught the imagination of a young metal head growing up in El Sobrante, California. Kirk Hammett was his name.
As fate would have it, he joined Metallica, Metallica got massive, and Hammett ended up owning that very guitar. It’s funny how it goes.
But now Gibson is giving all of us the chance to own one of these. Yes, the 1971 Flying V Medallion is pricey – from nose to tail, it’s a high-end electric guitar – but it’s a really quite exquisite reproduction of what might just be the ultimate rock guitar.
The Medallion-era Flying V didn’t just look cool. There was a functional aspect to its appeal. Its two-piece body is 1.375” thick as opposed to the 1.5” of the original 1958 Korina Flying V, making it lighter. This reissue shares that thinner body.
It also has the same 1971 neck profile, with its three-piece mahogany neck glued to the body and featuring a volute. It has a rosewood fingerboard with a 12” radius and cellulose dot inlays, 22 medium jumbo frets.
This has been a big year for the 1968 T-Top humbucker. Gibson has added them to its electric guitar pickup shop, and it has used a pair of them here.
These run a little hotter than the usual PAF-style sound. They are left unpotted and are hand-wired to their individual volume knobs, and a master tone.
Note the black witch hat style knobs on the white pickguard. All classic stuff. But as Gibson's vice president of product, Mat Koehler, says, the model holds “a special place” in the brand's history.
“As one of Gibson’s earliest limited-edition instruments, it helped establish a lasting legacy within hard rock guitar culture,” says Koehler. “This reissue brings back the details, feel, and sound of the original, giving players the opportunity to experience an iconic instrument with remarkable vintage accuracy.”
Other details of note include the Kluson tuners and the ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge. Gibson is releasing this in Cherry.
Maybe you will refinish it in black and white one day like Schenker, or leave as it is. Either way it’ll be quite the guitar – and collectible, too.
Each medallion is individually numbered. The 1971 Flying V Medallion Reissue is available now priced £4,399/$4,999, and that price includes a hard-shell guitar case.
See Gibson for more details.
