“I lost the truss rod cover”, honest!

May 19th, 2009

While flicking through the listings of eBay I came across one of those horrible sparkly, Liberace variety Gibson Les Paul gold tops you never see in the stores, (because they’re fake – obviously).

This one was advertised as a genuine Gibson, good condition, gold color, (for those who are blind yet for some reason look at eBay!?!).  Well, taking great offense to this guitar yours truly sent the seller a friendly message; I hope you weren’t ripped off, it’s a fake, I can see by the headstock shape and truss rod cover, and I said that there are other inconsistencies (which I didn’t mention), I hope you do the right thing and pull it, etc. etc.  I leave it at that, as expected I get no reply.

Low and behold the seller has another “Gibson” Les Paul for sale, and claims that he LOST the truss rod cover on this one, as you do; Some people lose keys, wallets, tickets, this guy loses a piece of plastic that was screwed, probably with three screws, into some wood.

Man, that’s unlucky. Funny he lost the bit that I told him was a giveaway for a fake? Well that was it, I can’t stand these con artists so, in true vigilante style I donned my famous cowl and raced to the batcave where I, er, well, I sat at my desk and emailed Gibson Customer Service and told on him. Anyway, after a report to eBay both the offending items were removed. The seller then put his location as eBaysucksd**k, or something to that effect, clearly a real nice guy. Anyway, if you ever need help with a Gibson guitar send Gibson Customer Services an email, they may not have time to respond straight away but if you send them pictures and item numbers, (if on an auction site) then they can help with any questions. if you email me and they’re fake I’ll put them on the web.

“Play me some songs about a ramblin’ man, put old Jim Beam in my hand”, Just not this one.

May 14th, 2009

Ok, it’s not  a real Gibson, the price is so low it’s ridiculous, (mid $300′s), it has the usual bad headstock, a truss rod cover with “Les Paul Standard” printed on it, no case, a rosewood fretboard, a pickup selector switch surround with gold print (real ones have white) which overlaps the “This bourbon…” statement on the body, which is not obscured on the real ones. Also the description states;

“This a brand new guitar. The sound quality of this guitar is absolutely marvelous. I believe this instrument will please most discriminative professional player. This style professonal guitar is compelely new and nice. ”

And I didn’t edit that to sound like I was putting on my best Charlie Chan voice, that was copy n’ paste from the website, spelling mistakes n’ all. These are rare guitars, they are not available new and they are expensive.

The real Les Paul Jim Beam (above), was part of a corporate sponsorship program, a bunch of companies had some Les Paul’s done; Jim Beam, Budweiser, Indian Motorcycles amongst others. According to Gibson about 75 were made of the Jim Beam model and there are some obvious differences between the real and the fake.

The real Jim Beam Les Paul is basically a Les Paul Studio with an unbound ebony fretboard, top hat control knobs, chrome hardware, Jim Beam insignia on the headstock and a plain truss rod cover.