If someone offers you what is apparently a 1995 Gibson Les Paul for $250 that “their Uncle bought off of eBay for $450″ then you’d be right to check it’s authenticity with someone, because for that price you’d be lucky to get some decent pickups – let alone a piece of wood to stick ‘em to. Corey wasn’t going to be taken in easily and sent fibsons.com an email, just to make sure.
It has a serial number and MADE IN U.S.A. on the back of the headstock and it says Gibson on the front, so it must be a Gibson Les Paul. Ok, those of you who have visited and read pages on this site before will chuckle and say that it is clearly not a Gibson Les Paul, but we were all unsure once and I’ll keep putting these up for the uninitiated and first time visitor, as well as a refresher for the returning Gibson lover and those who like to use this site to check that the something tasty they have come across on the internet/local pawn shop/garage sale etc. isn’t bogus.
So, here we go working our way up from the bottom of the main picture; The body shape is not the correct shape for a Gibson Les Paul, the forward strap button appears to be in the wrong place as does the pick up selector switch, though this is probably due to the incorrect body shape. The body colour/color is dubious for a Les Paul Custom which, according to the truss rod cover, this guitar is pretending to be, the inlays appear to have been copied from the Les Paul Supreme (that was not released until 2003), the fretboard should be ebony (thanks Matt for the reminder), the truss rod cover has three screws in it instead of two, the split diamond inlay on the headstock is laughably bad, the fake Gibson logo is at the wrong angle and the “open book” shape of the headstock is wrong. Looking at the back of the guitar’s headstock we see the fake serial number does show that it would be made in 1995 but the style of stamp is incorrect.
Thanks Corey for the email.
