GEIB CASE REVIEW has with the case, and musicians use their hands professionally. A handle that creates any fatigue or discomfort is a failure at the most basic level.” The Geib Aero handle is custom-designed, leather-covered, with TKL-designed steel components and grip inside. Weight reduction went alongside this, developing methods to take weight out of cases while maintaining structural integrity, almost against the grain of the rugged vintage aesthetic he was otherwise honoring. The Geib Aero Tweed weighs in at less than 11 pounds.
The author’ s SCGC Tony Rice in its new home.
and became an important part of the case opening experience. When I mentioned the Jonathan Brooke moment and Jerry Douglas’ s story, Dougherty appreciated the thread.“ We decided not to go for whiskey scent,” he said in his deadpan manner.“ We let the whiskey aficionados infuse their own scent.”
Beyond appearance and aroma, the next thing one notices is the handle, which is remarkably comfortable. Dougherty spent what he acknowledges was a disproportionate amount of time on handle development, for a direct reason:“ The handle is the first physical contact a musician
On a Personal Note
Being a dominantly fingerstyle guy, I don’ t have many dreadnoughts. One of the few is a Santa Cruz Tony Rice model, one of the original runs from the 1990s. It arrived in a case that was not worthy of its contents and lived there for thirty years, providing adequate protection, but nothing more. When the Geib Aero Tweed arrived for this story, the Tony Rice moved in.
Set beside a fine vintage guitar, the case changes the emotional presentation entirely. A Santa Cruz Tony Rice model resting inside a Geib Aero Tweed feels situated within a longer American lineage: the guitar’ s own history, the case’ s history, and the broader story of what American lutherie and American manufacturing once produced together. The visual pairing simply makes sense. Dougherty hears this frequently from owners who move prized instruments into these cases after years of living with something generic.
Charles Geib walked off a Wisconsin farm in 1896 with three years of schooling and built the
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