Is this a fake Elitist Casino?

[Red 333]

+1 on this Red. Another thing I`ve noticed, is the trapeze tailpiece on this guitar is not the original Elitist type, but the one with the larger nuts that you find on the Chinese Casino`s. So maybe a Bigsby has been fitted at some point.

 

Steve.

 

The refurb center may have stripped the original hardware and pups, too, to sell them separately. That's very common.

 

Red 333

[mgrmatt]

.

 

An Elitist Casino has no paint on the back of the neck. When a headstock repair is made, standard operating procedure is to paint over the break and the splines used to repair it. That also explains why the red seal is not present--it's been painted over. You can take that to the bank.

 

There is no doubt that the guitar in question was repaired at a refurbishing center. It was assigned a new serial number there, and that was placed on a sticker that covers the original, which was typed on the sound hole label. The owner did not move the sticker--refurb centers always cover the original serial number with a sticker.

 

(For those that don't have hollow body guitars, it's helpful to know that they have serial numbers in two places. On the Elitist, it would be embossed, not printed, on the back of the headstock. The original serial number would also be printed on the sound hole label.)

 

That guitar was not one of those made from the left over Lennon 1965 Casinos, as those had no Elitist sound hole label, have a different color stained back, different hardware (tuners and tail piece), and are finished in nitro, not poly. The guitar in the picture has a poly finish.

 

Red 333

 

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I understood that it wasn't a Lennon, my point was it was listed on cl in Nashville and that we tend to see a few odd ones here because the Gibson Epi headqurters are located here and sometimes people get acess to things that aren't normally sold to the public. I think your 100% spot on with your assesment.