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Is my LP a true USA Gibson?


lewis_grey

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I just took my 07 Les Paul Standard into a nearby guitar shop for some repair work and the owner of the shop initially thought it was a fake. His reasoning for this was that it was too light and it had the wrong pickups. I told him this was because all Standards made after 06 were chambered and that I'd had the standard Burstbucker Pro's replaced with Seymour Duncans, I even showed him the BB's which have the PAF sticker on the back. When I talked to him later he changed his mind and decided it was a USA made Gibson but it was what he called 'eastern spec'; according to him these eastern spec Gibsons are still made in the Nashville factory but with differnt woods, paint, glues etc. and are made for sale in the asian market. I've never heard anything like this before and I'd like someone to just clarify if there's any truth in this. I know that Gibson have Orville in Japan but I was under the impression that a USA Standard is a USA Standard and the same regardless of where they are sold, obviously no one Les Paul is exactly the same and some are made better than others but I thought they all went through the same production process. Can anyone please advise on this matter?

 

(Oh and just as a side note, I've played quite a few LP's and I've always thought mine was a slight cut above the rest if I'm honest, it just plays better than all the other non-custom shops I've played)

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

 

Lewis

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yeah this could be a case of just wanting to provide an answer to your question...it didnt matter if he knew the answer or not!

 

i deal with that all the time myself...people want to be experts at things and due to that need to want to be smarter than most sometimes they pad their stats!

 

hahaha

 

to my knowledge a gibson...be it a $400 Melody Maker or a $7000 Johnny Winter Firebird...are ALL made in the USA...

 

whether or not they were spec'd out to an Asian market is up for debate...

 

if you were living in Asia and wanted a True American Gibson...especially since they are much much more expensive out there...wouldnt you want the ones Americans play instead of ones made just for the Asians?

 

that sounds a lot more reasonable than people flooding Japanese guitar shops spending two to three times on a guitar that Americans couldnt even get their hands on...

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Sorry, it won't let me post the pics, I'll have to post some links to flickr

 

>

 

 

>

 

 

2574686881_3689671e1f.jpg?v=0

 

 

Gibson Les Paul Standard

 

 

 

Gibson Les Paul

 

 

Gibson Les Paul and Marshall JCM 800

 

These are pretty old pics, some pre-pickup change but you get the idea.

 

 

EDIT by Moderator - added ability to view linked pics.

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Looks alright. Does the headstock say Gibson?

 

Well yeah, I really can't be bothered to take a pic of the headstock though. I also checked the serial no. on the website and it all checked out ok. It's been to a couple of other shops without any raised eyebrows, infact they've only had good things to say about it.

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Looks fine to me.

 

Tell the guys in the shop he's full of ****.

 

My guess is it's a store which didn't get their Gibson Dealership renewed and his bitter, twisted and pissed off about it. And to be honest it was probably the best thing if the staff are telling people about imaginary 'Eastern Editions'

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headstock pics pliz

 

Trust me, it's a real Gibson, I know that much and that wasn't the issue, the issue was the whole 'eastern spec' thing which appears to be crap so I'm not going to bother taking pics of the headstock just to be told something I already know, sorry.

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Trust me' date=' it's a real Gibson, I know that much and that wasn't the issue, the issue was the whole 'eastern spec' thing which appears to be crap so I'm not going to bother taking pics of the headstock just to be told something I already know, sorry.[/quote']'

 

kk sorry for asking!

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With the WEALTH of knowledge that is out there regarding fake guitars (specifically LPs), it makes my brain hurt, to think about all the people who, A.) Have been duped into buying one, B.) Have already purchase one, and then ask questions...after the fact, and C.) Still cant' tell the difference.;) #-o #-o

 

To me the difference between a real LP, and a fake one is as big as, the difference between a horse, and a donkey. And IMHO, if you've seen one fake LP, you've seen them all. So distinguishing between them, shouldn't be that hard.

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Because they can' date=' majority of the time (and its not just music dealers) those who you speak with know very little more than the person looking to purchase something. One thing I used to do in my brief life in retail is mess with jerks. We would have people come in all the time and brag about having vast knowledge about software and hardware. My lower techs would tell me when these guys arrive and they would give the younger guys problems and the younger guys (some of them) would come to me while those people were in the store. I would spark up a conversation and find out exactly how much they did not know. I would discuss "top Secret" Microsoft stuff that did not exist and make up stuff on the fly and these guys would (the jerks) would totally agree with me and mention that they thought they were the only ones who knew about the secret stuff. It was a game for me and chances are this is what happened. Or maybe the tech thought this guy was a jerk; kinda like he came off in the message saying he knew it was and didn't have time to be bothered with. Not saying he is a jerk, maybe the tech thought so and pulled what I would do to some?[/quote']

 

Yeh, I did sound like a bit of a jerk off in that post, honestly I didn't mean it like that and that tech kinda put me in a bad mood. I get on well with the guy and hes done loads of amp work for me without any problems but I do get the impression he thinks he knows everything to know about guitars and he didn't seem too fond of Gibson, I think I remeber him saying something about how he tried to get them in his shop but he couldn't get the licensing so there may be some bitterness there.

 

Anyway, thanks to everyone that replied, it's put my mind to rest a bit although I can't say believed the guy when he told me. Cheers guys.

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