GEIB CASE REVIEW
& Schaefer Company in the 1930s, one of the few original textile mills of its kind still operating in the United States and still making the same cloth. The interior lining, the historic pink that became so strongly associated with Gibson during the Geib years that it defined a whole period of the brand’ s visual identity, comes from another original mill, also still running.
Hardware is harder. The American manufacturers who made period-correct case hardware were mostly gone by 2000. Dougherty has sourced reproductions where originals are unavailable and is honest about it. As such, he calls the result an interpretation rather than a strict reproduction: the spirit and the materials are as faithful as the surviving supply chain allows. Where they depart, they depart with intention.
What Harptone Brought to This
To understand TKL’ s relationship to this kind of work, you have to know about Harptone. Dougherty bought the historic Brooklyn case company in 1999, when it was, as he put it, not in good financial condition or good physical condition. What interested him was the history, specifically the tooling, which dated to 1886 and had been numbered by the original craftsmen. That tooling is still in his Virginia shop. Tool number one hangs on the wall behind where we spoke.( At some point he de-
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