Making its debut in 1958, the Gibson Explorer (or just “Explorer“) was considered radically futuristic looking when it came out, and is still iconic today. Only a few were made in the late ’50s, and the model was promptly deemed a failure and discontinued. This makes original Explorers extremely valuable as collector guitars. 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.