Real Gibson or Chinese replica ~ ~ ~ how do you tell ???

midlifecrisis

apart from people trying to rip people off by selling them as gibsons, i dont see why anyone would want to own one. There are plenty of good quality gibson style guitars at reasonable prices. Who cares if it says gibson on the head, apart from sad guitarist. the general public dont.      if i put a bmw badge on my skoda, its still a skoda

Voxman

Scary stuff especially for those less in the know. I'm hoping to buy another Les Paul in the new year and I'd likely only buy one now from a trustworthy source eg regular well known Fret-boarders here or a good store. E-Bay, Gumtree etc become ever more risky as I'm not sure I could necessarily pick up on all the finer nuances if someone really worked at making a Chibson look more authentic.  It's a real shame, because the lack of confidence caused by these things is likely to have some impact on genuine E-Bay/Gumtree etc sales.  

DrJazzTap

midlifecrisis said:

apart from people trying to rip people off by selling them as gibsons, i dont see why anyone would want to own one. There are plenty of good quality gibson style guitars at reasonable prices. Who cares if it says gibson on the head, apart from sad guitarist. the general public dont.      if i put a bmw badge on my skoda, its still a skoda

people do though, that's the sad thing. That human nature of looking for approval etc.
That's why you see a market for aftermarket car badges. And then subsequently lots of badged up  M series/ M sport BMWs. And you think "I'm pretty sure they never made a M3 diesel estate for that year"
People aspire to own a Gibson or a fender.  And if you can't afford one then sometimes people go for an imitation.

 I couldn't afford a real 335 in 09, so ended up buying a jap tokai. Which i still love. I'm not ashamed of it. I just didn't have the money back then. The guitar sounds great and id never try and claim it was a Gibson.

If Gibson were to open up a Gibson china plant and produce licensed high end copies then they'd clean up. Not full fat copies but along the lines of suhr and PRS etc. Just give the people what they want. Not sure how they'd brand it.

 But accept the problem head on. Same as the cereal manufacturers did when supermarkets started producing knock offs. Weetabix started making cereal for the major supermarkets own brands.