Les Paul Standard

[Guest guitarzan]

I bought a used Les Paul Standard 20 years ago. Never thought about it being a fake . Recently I've seen all the videos showing the easiest way to tell a fake USA is the bridge . Mine has a Gotoh bridge . I brought it to a local music store when the Gibson bus guy was in town and the guy said ( after seeing the guitar inside and out ) it was a genuine USA Gibson . The bridge made no difference . Just wondering , did Gibson ever use Gotoh bridges on factory US Les Pauls ?

[capmaster]

Gibson has always used hardware from various manufacturers. It is hard to tell if Gotoh is among them or not, and if yes, when they used their parts first.

 

The stock hardware parts of all my Gibsons show various approaches: Some tell nothing, some manufacturer only, some part type or part number only, and some country of origin only. For instance, one "Harmonica" bridge from 1978 and one Fishman piezo bridge base say Made in Germany but don't mention the company, probably Schaller or ABM, and all of the sealed machine heads say Grover while some closed ones say Gibson, others Kluson. Clearly identifiable are the Babicz bridges on two Gibson basses of mine.

 

I know it won't help so far, but now you know I'm sharing your experience that it ain't easy. ;)

[Pesh]

+1 to Cap.

 

So many of the 2017 range have Grover tuners as a fine example confirmation of that; they've used parts from all over. Recent years have seen special models use TonePros hardware for some special models or the Les Paul Standard line - my Traditional Pro II is an example of this.

 

Atop that; as you've mentioned - you bought your LP as a second hand - a previous owner could well have swapped out the "standard" bridge for you model year for that