The body portion of the case was relatively intact, but the area that contained the neck was splintered.
Unfortunately common with Gibson electrics when they suffer a fall off a stand, but yes,
in a case, as well. It's not only the impact, per se, but the nature of the impact where a blow from either the front or the back of the headstock area creates inertia in one direction, then the motion stops violently (as the case --or guitar off a stand-- hits the ground, say), but the inertia of the rest of the headstock's mass still wants to go forward while the neck has stopped moving ...then snap! It's akin to "whiplash" when getting rear ended. It's common knowledge for anyone who buys or sells a Gibby on a forum to make certain the
entire headstock area is
very well supported and damped so as to spread the load of any shipping "incidences" across a larger portion of the neck.
But given the absolute rarity of neck breaks I've ever heard of shipped Taylors, I'd have to surmise that yes, SF's guitar clearly suffered some serious G's courtesy of the shipping gorillas who had their mits on it!
Edward
