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 A marriage of art and science
True to its experimental mentality, Gibson decided to pursue this scientific approach to acoustic guitar design and using its discoveries, introduced the Mark series which debuted in the Spring of 1975 and died in 1979. The first active promotion of the Marks occurred in August of 1975 with full spread ads in Guitar Player.

According to accounts published in The Music Trades, in May of ‘73 Gibson began the Mark story by contacting Dr. Adrian Houtsma, Professor of Acoustic Physics at MIT, to confirm some research Gibson itself had initiated. Receiving a favorable review, Gibson then went to Dr. Kasha, who was at the time, a chemical physicist working as Director of the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University. Combining the findings from Gibson’ R&D department and Drs. Houtsma and Kasha, the company finally landed on the doorstep of well known luthier Richard Schneider, who was charged with making the scientific information practical, designing a guitar that fit with Gibson’s aesthetics and capable of being put into production. The Mark series was born.

Eventually six Marks were produced. They were, to wit, the MK-99, MK-81, MK-72, MK-53, MK-35 and MK-35-12. The model number, by the way, is branded into the back joint strip, visible through the soundhole. Appointments, according to Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars, were as follows. MK-99 custom order handmade by Schneider with gold parts, steel or classical. The MK-81 had a rosewood body, removable pickguard, ebony board with abalone block inlays and gold hardware. The MK-72 had a rosewood body, a three-piece ebony/rosewood/ebony board, dot inlays and nickel hardware. The MK-53 (shown here) had a maple body, rosewood board, dot inlays and nickel hardware. The MK-35 had a mahogany body. The MK-35-12 was a 12-string; only 12 were made in 1977.

Shown here is an M-53 from the end of the run in 1978. It follows the Gruhn description, except that the sides and back are natural maple (not walnut stained), with the back being moderately flamey. It has a nice sustain, especially strung with medium gauge strings, and a full, balanced response. The big body depth provides loud projection when you bang on it with a flatpick, but lacks subtlety when you try to fingerpick it.

The Divorce
Were the Gibson/Houtsma/Kasha/Schneider innovations a significant improvement over designs that had evolved over the last several hundred years? Well, this M-53 is a nice sounding instrument, but it isn’t too difficult to find a handmade guitar with more traditional construction that offers superior tone. I suspect the problem was that the designers were trying to apply science, which is based on the fundamental principle of reproducability, to working with wood, which is entirely an art form. No two pieces of wood are the same. Each board, like individual people, responds to pressure and stress differently, however subtly. The best oscilloscope in the world won’t be able to predict what the next piece of spruce will sound like. The best guitars are what they are because of the skill and intuition of the maker who tunes them, one at a time.
I also suspect that the brilliance of designs like C.F. Martin’s (or whomever’s) X-bracing for steels and Torres’ fan bracing for classicals lies more in their general applicability across a wide variety of tonewood response in a production environment than in their superior theoretical transference of sound waves. In other words, the Marks are pretty cool guitars, but there’s a good reason they only lasted three or four years and you can pick one up for a lot less than what you’d pay for a far less scientifically fashioned Hummingbird.