Making its debut in 1958, the Explorer (or “Gibson Explorer“) was considered radically futuristic looking when it came out, and is still iconic today. This makes original Explorers extremely valuable as collector guitars. Only a few were made in the late ’50s, and the model was promptly deemed a failure and discontinued. It has been reissued many times since, and has also been the progenitor of many similar-shaped guitars from various manufacturers.
In addition to its distinctly angular body with no upper bout, it has a unique “banana” or “hockey stick” headstock that is pointy and angled downward (and is often considered one of the influences of the later “pointy headstock” phase of heavy-metal-focused instruments). The Explorer originally was entirely made out of korina, but the woods used to make it have varied over the years. The original Explorer also featured a fixed bridge, two volume knobs and one tone knob, two humbucking pickups, and a three-way pickup selector switch in the lower bout. While classic-rock guitarists such as Allen Collins (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) favored the Explorer, it has mostly been popular among hard-rock musicians for its angled, futuristic look.