Super 400 knock-offs?

[brians356]

Anyone heard of Super 400 knock-offs out there? I've heard all about Chinese Les Pauls, some Gretsch, etc. but never Super 400s. I saw one the other day that was obiously fake, laughable, really. But I can't find any anecdotal evidence on Super 400s on the Internet.

[brians356]

I got some pictures of the "Super 400" and sent them to Gibson Service. A chap there replied:

 

"Thanks for sending the pictures. The instrument in question does not appear consistent with a real Gibson. There have been a lot of counterfeit instruments come into the USA from internet auction sites. They are illegal to sell or resell here in the USA. Thanks."

 

So my dream find, a Super 400 for $900, turned out to be a curio, like a Hong Kong Rolex. I gave the bad news to the owner, but caveat emptor for you collectors, not that anyone on this forum would have been fooled. What amazes me is that some factory in China (presumably) would think a Super 400 acoustic worth knocking off, seeing as how they could sell 100 times as many Les Paul or 335 copies. What 16-year-old garage band hopeful on the Internet would be tempted by an archtop acoustic from the age of buggy whips? Put another way, no one who appreciates archtop acoustics from the Golden Era could possibly have been fooled by a crude fake -- could they?

[brundaddy]

When I was a 16 year-old garage rocker delinquent I was a big fan of the Nuge, Malcolm Young, Izzy Stradlin, Scotty Moore... anybody who ripped on big, hollow, SINGLE-cutaway gibsons (to me anyways) was/is cooler than cool. Killer players also played 335s (Chuck Berry) but as a kid I saw so many ******s with backwards newsboy caps playing double-cutaways.... ruined the 335-type for me.

 

Long story short, I'd have scooped one up on the cheap, fake or not. And being a delinquent I mighta liked a counterfeit just fine.