The Gibson M-III was one of the company’s rare attempts to muscle in on the popular Superstrat movement of the late 1980s, led by Jackson and Ibanez. It was not as successful as other Gibsons and was withdrawn after only a few years in production.
The guitar featured an updated Stratocaster shape with a reverse headstock, and had a set-neck when the trend in Superstrat design was to have a thru-neck, or a bolt-on for the cheaper models.
All guitars had Floyd Rose style tremolos and two humbuckers plus a central single-coil pickup. Also, where most superstrats had rosewood or ebony fingerboards, the M-III’s frets were set into a slab of maple.
The guitars looked and felt too different from Gibson’s classic models, and are no longer made, although there is an M-III shaped model called the EM-2 in Epiphone’s metal-oriented Prophecy range.
The Gibsons are rare and collectable, but are another example of a 10-20 year-old guitar which offers a lot for not very much money used.
They are worth between £500-800.
The dark red coloured MIII, as pictured, was my first ever ‘decent’ guitar. It was bought with a combination of money earned labouring on a farm and with a little extra help from my parents in 1990.
Although, I gigged the guitar for almost a decade, I never saw another one in the flesh and, until now, haven’t seen anything written about them.
It’s a shame as it is an amazingly flexible and well put together guitar with a huge array of sounds on offer. It’s wide, thin neck make and ample access to the higher frets make it excellent for lead stuff and it sounds great for everything from blues to metal. The pickups sound a little tame compared to the modern pair of Ibanez that I use for rhythm playing, but they have bags of character, particularly as the neck or bridge humbucker can be paired with the single coil in the middle.
On the downside, the Floyd can be a bit of a pain to change strings and it requires the truss rod to be adjusted and the action re-set (by my Dad) every year or two to avoid the action raising and the intonation creeping off on the A string.
Mine has been confined to studio only use since around 2000 but it is the oldest guitar in my collection and one that has many memories infused into the woodwork. I have no doubt that it’ll be with me until the day I die.
i have one and this guitar is out of this world. I have strats les pauls and parker and this m3 beats them all. and should be a worth a lot more. Gibson should be making more or stand behind the ones they made they are being then half of the junk thats out here now .