Last year, Trump Guitars caused a stir when its patriotic line, claiming to be officially endorsed by incoming 47th American President Donald J. Trump, went up for sale.
The fledgling brand was swiftly hit with a cease-and-desist order from Gibson, as one model – the American Eagle – featured a body shape strikingly similar to the iconic Les Paul.
Despite this, the model is back on sale alongside a disclaimer clarifying that “GetTrumpGuitars.com is not affiliated, associated, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Gibson Inc.”
The range has been subject to an awful lot of discussion online, but now one intrepid YouTube guitar reviewer has actually bought the $1,500 guitar for research purposes.
As advertised, the solidbody, all-mahogany guitar features a high-gloss eagle and flag design on the body and a rosewood fretboard adorned with ‘Make America Great Again’ inlays.
“Hey, that's a beautiful neck,” admits HW from ToneJunkie TV. “I gotta be honest with you, my first impression of this guitar is a lot better than I expected.
“I completely expected to waste $1,500 just for this video because I was curious. I've never heard of a Reagan guitar or a Clinton guitar or an Obama guitar. I mean, maybe those existed. I just didn't run into them.”
HW demonstrates the guitar's sound through his rig – a Kemper with a Deluxe Reverb capture. While he notes the rhythm and middle positions sound “cool,” he finds the bridge pickup on its own “a little underpowered”.
He also observes that the three-piece body guitar arrived with no finish flaw on the body but a slight finish flaw when it comes to some of the stars on the headstock. It's equipped with chrome hardware, and a fully set-up medium to medium-high action.
He also notes that it stays in tune “pretty well.” However, while the tuners are decent and the bridge is “clearly intonated”, the strings, in his words, play like they “were made in hell,” which he explains is common with imported guitars.
Overall, HW concludes that “it looks like a guitar that might have come out of a Samick or maybe the Harley Benton factory,” meaning it is definitely not a “Made in the USA” guitar.
He adds, “It might mean from China, you know, the body and the wood and everything. So it's less than 51% made in the United States.”
ToneJunkie TV's final verdict? “Could you play it? Sure. Could you enjoy it? Yeah, absolutely. I would say, is this guitar worth the $1,500 I paid for it? No way.
“I would put this guitar in line with an import Harley Benton that you would buy for 500 bucks. That's what I think his guitar should go for. It's like a collector piece at this point.”
In a more recent video comparing the Trump guitar to a Harley Benton, HW clarifies that one of his main reasons for the low price is the quality of the pickups, which he says are “really not up to snuff for a $1,500 guitar.”
He also notes that the knobs are in the “wrong color,” adding, “They're not like the gold that's on a Les Paul. They're this bright, weird color, like someone did it kind of from memory. And so that bothers me, too.
“I would just say to someone, it's on par with maybe a $250 to $300 guitar in terms of what I'm playing right now – the quality control [and] the playability,” he concludes.
By early December, Trump Guitars had already made changes to the models advertised on its website after Guitar World broke the news of Gibson's cease-and-desist. However, the contested model is now back on sale.
Guitar World has reached out to Gibson for comment on this latest development.
Update 1/3/24: This article has been updated to include comments made by ToneJunkie TV in a recent video update.
