January 22nd, 2010
I thought I’d mentioned this already but after a search of the site I couldn’t find it, a lot of the websites that sell shed loads of these fakes often use pictures of genuine Gibson guitars that they pinch from honest sources. One of those sources, meestursparkle, was surprised to see his own pictures being used to shift some dodgy R9 copies. As he points out; “… sellers are even going so far as to steal my pictures again even with the watermark…idiots.”

Great thing about this picture is the clear shot of the C.O.A. Quite a bit different from the picture of a C.O.A. shown in the item meestursparkle found. As he would say, idiots.

Posted in Les Paul | Comments Off
December 28th, 2009
“GIBSON LES PAUL STANDARD INK BLUE TOP GUITAR” Condition: NEW
and it sold for $1900 in Australia!!! At first glance it looks very legit, appears to be a one of the limited edition colors from a while back, lighter than Manhattan Blue, more like on those fake Epiphones… uh oh.

A very convincing copy, the case is one giveaway as you would expect the correct case to come with a new guitar, this guitar also has the “gibson” decal on the pot cavity cover which is never seen on a real Gibson. The seller states in the ad that it was a gift 6 months ago, so perhaps they didn’t know it was a fake. A message was sent to them encouraging them to double check it’s authenticity and not to rip off an unsuspecting buyer but sadly it appears that it was ignored.

The main giveaways, as usual, lie in the headstock. The truss rod cover had several things wrong with it. It could be blank. or it could have Standard printed on it, but not Les Paul standard. The shape of the headstock is close to the genuine article but the placement of the Gibson logo, (which should be mother of pearl inlay, not a block color decal) is off, as is the font used as the Les Paul signature, though very subtly.
The frets should not travel over the binding, this is common on fakes, it could be argued that the guitar had had a re-fret but this guitar is listed as new, (well, 6 months old, which would not require a re-fret).
Posted in Les Paul, Standard | Comments Off