GEIB CASE REVIEW
who needed work whether or not the company needed them, and for walking out of any conversation that turned vulgar, even at the cost of business.“ He would tell them,‘ I don’ t care if I lose the business, I do not communicate this way.’” He was, by every account, deeply respected for it.
By 1934, Geib & Schaefer had begun producing cases for Gibson’ s top-of-the-line instruments: the Super 400, the L-5, and what would become the Super J-200. Newly available chemical dyes made possible a bright magenta silk plush lining that became the defining visual signature of those cases. It was the beginning of the color’ s long association with Gibson. Alongside the leather-covered flagship models, Geib was also producing, from approximately 1934 to 1942, two lines that are particularly prized today: the Red Line cases and the Aeroplane Cloth“ Tweed” cases, covered in a striped fabric that had been used on luggage as well as instrument cases. These are the cases that vintage collectors now search for with the same intensity they bring to prewar instruments.
By 1937 the Schaefer name had disappeared from the company: the business was being incorporated as Geib Inc., the Schaefer family no longer involved in ownership or management. The Geib medallion began appearing on select cases at about this time. When the war came, the factory adapted without fully stopping. The sewing machines that ran canvas cases were repurposed to produce small canvas goods for the Army— shovel covers, M1 carbine magazine pouches— while instrument case production continued alongside. Then the war ended, and Geib carried on.
The factory at 1757 North Central Park Avenue operated as the company’ s main production facility until 1968. The building still stands, abandoned, on the site where Jacob Schaefer’ s family lived three blocks away and Nicholas Geib’ s mill room filled the better part of a city block. Steve Kirtley, whose meticulous research reconstructed most of this history in interviews with Geib family members, found the original factory plaque still intact when he visited.
— Geib history courtesy of Steve Kirtley. Learn more here: https:// stevekirtley. org / geib /
How Geib Came Back
Tom Dougherty came to Geib sideways, as he comes to most things. He picks up old cases when he encounters them, and eventually acquired an original Geib Aero Cloth from Kirtley. He liked it. He started researching, and something began forming.
At the same time, TKL had developed printing technology capable of reproducing the vintage patterning on tweed fabric with genuine fidelity. They already had relationships with historically oriented suppliers through Cedar Creek, the custom case line Dougherty had started in 1992.
The remarkable thing is how much of the original supply chain had survived. The tweed on the new Geib Aero cases comes from the same American mill that supplied the original Geib
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