2019 Les Paul - fingerprints under the finish

[dmc.cmd]

Greetings all. I just received a Les Paul I ordered from Reverb - a 2019 Standard. The seller listed it as mint condition and also that it had no flaws, so I paid a lot more than I was hoping to. I just received it and on the back there are two very distinct fingerprints under the finish. You can see them at any angle except the angle that the photos on the Reverb listing show. There are also some dents which I'm not so worked up about but again, the listing said no flaws, mint condition. This was a LOT of money, and I was willing to pay that for a truly mint guitar. He declined my return and denied that the finish issues were pre-existing. I'm getting Reverb's customer support involved.

Have any of you seen this before? the fingerprints are definitely under the finish, though it's hard to tell that from the photos. They look like someone with dusty fingers touched the guitar before the finish was sprayed on.

 

[Dub-T-123]

Request fingerprints from the reverb seller and run a cross analysis on that biatch 🧐

[dmc.cmd]

1 minute ago, Dub-T-123 said:

Request fingerprints from the reverb seller and run a cross analysis on that biatch 🧐

😂

[Murph]

I've never bought from Reverb.

Just Sweetwater and Musicians Friend as far as sight unseen.

I had an issue with a blem in a Les Paul I bought for my daughter years ago. It was returned without a problem and I got her a different one.

Sorry, but I have no advice if Reverb won't back you up.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Murph

[sparquelito]

dmc.cmd,

I have been lucky, re; the purchases I have made via Reverb.
Of course, luck like that has more to do with doing business with only the consistently (highly) rated sellers, more so than the host platform.

Was this seller highly-rated on Reverb, or a fairly new Reverb member?

Here's hoping that Reverb can intervene, and help to facilitate a return.
If not, your only recourse is to have the back of the guitar sanded down and re-sprayed with fresh clear-coat.

One other thing you can do, if a return never happens, is to SAVAGE that seller in the Feedback/Review part of the Reverb website.
Give him zero stars in your review, and describe for everybody exactly what he did in the course of this transaction.

Clearly he is guilty of false advertising, and should have shown the fingerprints in his original advert.

🤨

[kidblast]

that's a first!   if that really is under the clear coat, and I've no reason to doubt it is, that's a pretty glaring example of a swing and a miss with QC.

[Karloff]

probably should avoid a black light ... just sayin'

[Murph]

I'd run those prints and see who's they are.

Maybe they tried to steal the guitar minutes before it was painted. He's running around Nashville right now.

Gibson would be so happy to find out his identity, they might make it right by you themselves......

[Pinch]

I'm keeping my new LP because it's outstanding in tone, but buzz free checked on the list... It's in a place where it won't matter to me much - I may or may not chase it down and fix it sometime - but it's a very, very obvious factory defect and if I sent Gibson a video, the QC person would get canned.  

Not residing Stateside, and having bought from quite a bit away, it's really a case of being forced to overlook things while paying top dollar. 

Like I said, I've learned to take the good with the bad, but I do feel disrespected by Gibson as a brand. You can bet your sweet *** they don't have the same QC for their artist's guitars or the Youtube reviewers as for us mere mortals. 

It's a shame. I love my Gibsons, warts and all, but as a company, they know we can't get that tone anywhere else, so they can treat us with disrespect. Kind of like a drug dealer. 

It's sad that you have to take this into consideration: when you buy a Gibson, you'll have to accept that your new expensive guitar will have great tone, but come with issues that you'll have to decide if you can live with. The QC is still really bad, no matter how many videos they put on YouTube. 

Yeah, yeah, if you're not happy, return it, blah blah woof woof. 

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Pinch

[OrdinaryNimda]

Good choice, the sound is first.

[Pinch]

1 hour ago, OrdinaryNimda said:

Good choice, the sound is first.

Mm, that's what I decided. Maybe my tone was a little harsh, but these things aren't cheap, and they're not getting any cheaper. 

I get it - QC is a job, and you're gonna have good days and bad. But maybe they need to pay QC more and slow down the pace (yeah, THAT'll happen). 

But the fingerprints? How could anyone miss that? I doubt the seller put them there and then sprayed nitro over them. 

However, crappy of the seller to hide them from the buyer! 

If the guitar is great in every other way, though... It's on the back after all. 

But I certainly understand if you want to return it on principle. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Pinch

[Pinch]

On 3/3/2023 at 1:45 PM, sparquelito said:

Clearly he is guilty of false advertising, and should have shown the fingerprints in his original advert.

🤨

Absolutely. 

[Dub-T-123]

5 hours ago, Pinch said:

I'm keeping my new LP because it's outstanding in tone, but buzz free checked on the list... It's in a place where it won't matter to me much - I may or may not chase it down and fix it sometime - but it's a very, very obvious factory defect and if I sent Gibson a video, the QC person would get canned.  

Not residing Stateside, and having bought from quite a bit away, it's really a case of being forced to overlook things while paying top dollar. 

Like I said, I've learned to take the good with the bad, but I do feel disrespected by Gibson as a brand. You can bet your sweet *** they don't have the same QC for their artist's guitars or the Youtube reviewers as for us mere mortals. 

It's a shame. I love my Gibsons, warts and all, but as a company, they know we can't get that tone anywhere else, so they can treat us with disrespect. Kind of like a drug dealer. 

It's sad that you have to take this into consideration: when you buy a Gibson, you'll have to accept that your new expensive guitar will have great tone, but come with issues that you'll have to decide if you can live with. The QC is still really bad, no matter how many videos they put on YouTube. 

Yeah, yeah, if you're not happy, return it, blah blah woof woof. 

 

What’s wrong with your guitar?

[Pinch]

10 hours ago, Dub-T-123 said:

What’s wrong with your guitar?

Well, there's a few annoying rattle/buzz things that I think should have been taken care of in QC. It's not a huge deal, but I just wish Gibson QC would be a little less lenient. But, of course, they're a big manufacturer and not a Mom and Pop operation. 

[Murph]

That chick from the Cold Case show could figure out whose finger prints those are.

Call her.

[fortyearspickn]

I'd be inclined to get her to work with Gibson QC - ID the guy who touched the guitar after having a powdered sugar donut on break - and dock his pay.  Send a clear message to the entire workforce!    You can't fire the QC guy that misses problems if they're  random, 1,000 items on a check list,  and infrequent.  Like the proverbial needle in a haystack.  As reported, the fingerprints are not visible at certain angles.  Fire QC guys like that - and you won't be able to fill the empty positions.   It would seem the better 'Total Quality Management' solution would be to find the actual source of the defect and let QC stomp on it.  "You're making my job impossible if you eat donuts and handle guitars."    None of us here would do that - powdered, glazed or jelly !    

Pinch -   it sounds like your guitar had the buzz-kill issue new - not having been tweaked at the store, or with lighter stings put on ?   Many here have reported Gibsons are sent from the factory with the action high.  Just as bad as having a rattle in a new car -  you hesitate to take it back, fearing the dealer (or guitar tech) will do something as a 'quick fix'. 

[badbluesplayer]

My advice is to flush a thousand dollars down the toilet every five minutes until you realize that you need to buy a new guitar from a dealer if you want to have the same buyer protection that a new buyer has. 

You are never going to win any arguments about this.  You are going to have to buy new guitars if you want to be able to return them.

Another thing - this notion that you are able to tell what fingerprints developed where, at what time, in a finish you have no experience with, and the notion that you're expert enough to tell what causes defects in a used guitar that nobody knows where it's been - that's going nowhere.  The problem is buying an expensive guitar used when you really want a new guitar.  Next time, buy a new guitar. 

And good luck trying to blame Gibson.  No way.  Not in a million years. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by badbluesplayer

[ksdaddy]

As to seller’s descriptions on Reverb…. Last week I took delivery of a used guitar (mid 60s) and the seller raved about the tone of the pickups, the recent professional setup, and that it was ready to rock. It arrived with approximately 3/16” of relief in the neck (you read that right) and the electronic output amounted to one of the pickups working but with the volume and tone having zero effect. I would have tried to return it, but it’s something I wanted. Even though I have had to spend several hours working out the kinks, it’s difficult to find one of these models, and it was only a few hundred dollars. I have mixed feelings about leaving poor feedback. Either he is too stupid to realize the state he sold it in, or he’s too crooked to let any bad feedback bother him.  Getting back to the 2019, I would simply suggest, if you want a guitar to be new, then you should buy new. Sellers are there to sell, and sometimes hype the condition up, hoping you won’t notice. 

[Dub-T-123]

7 hours ago, Pinch said:

Well, there's a few annoying rattle/buzz things that I think should have been taken care of in QC. It's not a huge deal, but I just wish Gibson QC would be a little less lenient. But, of course, they're a big manufacturer and not a Mom and Pop operation. 

Is the ABR-1 rattling or is it just a screw or something you can tighten down? Maybe a pickguard screw or something

[Pinch]

On 3/5/2023 at 6:54 PM, Dub-T-123 said:

Is the ABR-1 rattling or is it just a screw or something you can tighten down? Maybe a pickguard screw or something

Neither, and it's not the nut either. It's probably something stupid like a spring that reacts to a certain frequency or something. I could spend days chasing it down, or I could shrug because it doesn't bother me unless I'm thinking about it. I'll do the latter. Tone is awesome. 

But yeah, Gibson QC - still spotty. Or smudgy. 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Pinch

[jdgm]

30 minutes ago, Pinch said:

Neither, and it's not the nut either. It's probably something stupid like a spring that reacts to a certain frequency or something. I could spend days chasing it down, or I could shrug because it doesn't bother me unless I'm thinking about it. I'll do the latter. Tone is awesome. 

But yeah, Gibson QC - still spotty. Or smudgy. 

When you change strings, take out the pickups and either -  replace the pickup springs with some sort of tubing or sleeving (even a drinking straw works at a ....never mind)  - OR stuff some tissue or small bit of rag into the springs so they don't resonate at all.  You can also put a small piece of velcro on the side of the pickup to stop it rattling against the surround, but you need to set the correct height 1st if you do that and affix the velcro so it contacts the underside of the pickup surround.

Fixes 95% of noise problems.  The other 5% is bridge screws rattling so simply tighten or loosen a tiny fraction of a turn one way or the other and if you have a bridge with the wire across the top, make sure that is properly in place.  Do not attempt to bend the wire to solve the problem as that does not work, trust me!

I guarantee your problem is one or all of these things.

Edited March 6, 2023 by jdgm

[Dub-T-123]

Yep I was gonna say.. there are only 4 springs on a Les Paul so it shouldn’t be hard to track down if that’s the problem. 
 

Everything JDGM said is spot on. I’d add that none of this has anything to do with QC so lighten up on that poor guy lol

[Pinch]

55 minutes ago, jdgm said:

When you change strings, take out the pickups and either -  replace the pickup springs with some sort of tubing or sleeving (even a drinking straw works at a ....never mind)  - OR stuff some tissue or small bit of rag into the springs so they don't resonate at all.  You can also put a small piece of velcro on the side of the pickup to stop it rattling against the surround, but you need to set the correct height 1st if you do that and affix the velcro so it contacts the underside of the pickup surround.

Fixes 95% of noise problems.  The other 5% is bridge screws rattling so simply tighten or loosen a tiny fraction of a turn one way or the other and if you have a bridge with the wire across the top, make sure that is properly in place.  Do not attempt to bend the wire to solve the problem as that does not work, trust me!

I guarantee your problem is one or all of these things.

Thanks, will keep that in mind. 

[duane v]

That sure is an odd blemish. I would try some medium or fine rubbing compound and see if the blemish is at the surface of the clear. 
 

Nitrocellulose is easy to deal with.

[Rabs]

28 minutes ago, duane v said:

 

Nitrocellulose is easy to deal with.

If you live in the right climate or have a temperature controlled spray area...  🙂   If I want to spray nitro I literally have to wait for the right time of the year (or pay for a booth somewhere).