NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - With federal seizures of large quantities of rosewood and ebony, Nashville-based Gibson Guitar has been forced to get creative.
Guitars with fingerboards made of a composite material or a fire-hardened wood known as torrefied maple are just starting to hit the market.
Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told WPLN-FM that he's waiting to see what buyers think.
He said it is not the product Gibson normally would have built and he worries the change could be very injurious to the company.
Federal agents raided factories in Nashville and Memphis in August, seizing more than 10,000 fingerboards from Indian rosewood.
Prosecutors have filed court papers confirming a criminal investigation, but no charges have been filed.
Gibson was the subject of a similar raid in 2009 over ebony imported from Madagascar.
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