In 1976, Gibson began reissuing the Explorer after competitor Hamer Guitars had success selling similar designs.

[1] Gibson produced a very small first commercial batch of only 19 Explorers during the 1958 run of the original korina wood model, but only made and released 3 in the following year, 1959.

After the first few guitars, the Explorer had a long drooping headstock with the tuners placed in a straight line on one side (referred sometimes as "banana" and "hockey-stick").

Only 22 were shipped in its first two years, 19 in 1958 and 3 in 1959; an unknown (small) number of leftover bodies were completed with nickel 1960s hardware and sold in 1963.

[3][better source needed] In 1979 Gibson introduced the E2 model (also known as the Explorer II), featuring a 5-piece walnut/maple laminated construction and a contoured body.

Also, they have the TP6 tail-piece, gold hardware, and "velvet brick" or "dirty fingers" pickups, cream color body binding, with a black pickguard and 3 knobs in a row.

Epiphone also produced an Explorer Bass in ebony black and velvet natural finishes with two humbucking pickups and a 34"-scale 22-fret dark rosewood fingerboard.

The Explorer Bass employs a set-neck design rather than the bolted-neck construction used in the Epiphone version of the Gibson Thunderbird.

In the same year, Gibson also released the Robot Explorer, an Explorer version of the Gibson Robot Guitar together with a similar version of the Flying V featuring custom red metallic nitrocellulose finish, ebony fingerboard with white lining and trapezoid inlays, and lacking a pickguard.

After creating Matt Heafy of Trivium a white seven-string Explorer, Gibson released a statement that they would make a regular production version.

Although thought to be a staple in the Gibson lineup, the Explorer was discontinued and brought back multiple times in the late 2000s, along with the Flying V. In 2014 a limited edition 120th Anniversary model, with a special 12th-fret inlay and neck binding, was made available.

Gaining popularity with the hard rock musicians of the day, including Rick Nielsen, Hamer's success led the way for other copies and was partly responsible for prompting Gibson's own decision to reissue the Explorer.

After Entwistle's death, Alembic released the "Spyder" based on John's custom basses, with production limited to 50 guitars.

Dean Guitars produced a John Entwistle Spyder Signature Bass in 2013, limited to 25 US models and a low-cost Korean import series.

Ibanez introduced the Destroyer model in the 1970s, with a korina-coloured Japanese Sen body that closely resembled the original 1958 Explorer.

Although the new Destroyer II model was still clearly inspired by Gibson's original Explorer design, the body lines were modified, most notably around the treble "horn" and the rear edge, and the headstock was changed to a slight variation of the traditional Ibanez headstock shape, no longer resembling Gibson's "hockey stick" shape.

In 2005 the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered summary judgment against Gibson in that action, on the grounds that there was no evidence to support a finding of likelihood of confusion.