James Porter, the guitar dealer in Japan who sent in the great story about the fake left handed Joe Perry Les Paul has sent in his next find, a fake Gibson Ace Frehley Les Paul.
He found it being sold by another seller who accused him of selling a counterfeit Ibanez Jem! After an exchange of emails (that were most amusing but I won’t publish here), James emailed me the details. James’ Jem is authentic by the way, but this Les Paul is not.
Hard to tell from the above pictures but the body is slightly off shape, the control knobs are missplaced and the binding on the neck does not go over the frets.
Headstocks are often the biggest tell in a fake Gibson and in this case we can clearly see the differences between the headstocks of a fake Ace Frehley Les Paul, (left) and a real one, (right).
I’m not sure Space Ace would play the one on the left, as James point out the notch in the headstock is almost as bad as the one on the fake J-50 Michael sent in. Another giveaway was the price $860! Also of note is that the seller was apparently offering the wrong type of case, a check list that was too long and a certificate of authenticity, which was never issued with this guitar.
Thanks James for the email and details, see James’ website for hand picked great guitars.
