March 16th, 2010
Ranjit sent in this little gem, (actually Gibson did make a Gem Les Paul, so scrub that), this is one of those brilliant fakes that appears to suffer from some kind of dissociative identity disorder.
I’ll leave it to Ranjit to explain as he is something of an expert on Gibson guitars;
“Les Paul Custom … or is it a Supreme? But wait…. it has 3 pickups…okay…. but with a terrible Flame Neck inlay? And of course the classic Pickup Stickers. Horrible case too.”
It’s dodgy as hell and Ranjit would know because he works for Long & McQuade, the sister company to Yorkville, the distributors for Gibson in Canada. I told Ranjit that I’d put a link up to his store but as there are so many stores I put up the main site link. To make up for it here’s a map of where you can find Ranjit’s store if you’re ever in Calgary looking for a deal on a Gibson;
Thanks for the email and picture Ranjit, hope you’re not overwhelmed by the amount of customers you’ll undoubtably get from the readers of this website…
Posted in Custom, Les Paul, Supreme | Comments Off
August 25th, 2009
The older copies of the Les Paul Supreme, (see here, here, here and here) were very easy to spot if you could see the back of them as they had pot cavity covers, (the bits of plastic you see on the back of a Les Paul), the real ones do not.
The newer breed of fake Les Paul Supremes have now adopted this design, though how that makes it financially viable to these grifters is beyond me, I guess the wood underneath the photo copied flame top laminate must be pretty average. Fortunately most have a flat back like the one pictured above. Some though do not, (see further down) but they share many of the same flaws that a regular fake Les Paul has so picking them out is still fairly straightforward.
John, a Lt. in the United States Naval Academy, (who’s full name I am happy to reveal if he wishes), sent in one he spotted on eBay (above).
As you can see the back does not have the tell tale covers on it and it also appears carved, but there are other inconsistencies we can look at that tell us it’s a fake.
As John says, “…the fretboard looks to be rosewood”, not the case on a real Supreme. Also look at that headstock (above left), now look at it again and compare it to the picture of a real one next it. You see, it’s different.
Thanks for the tip off John, a lot of people find these new fake Supremes harder to spot.
Posted in Les Paul, Supreme | Comments Off
