Impossible Challenge - How to Make a Genuine Gibson Look Fake?

[guitaroholic]

This thread is ranking in the Top #10 in China now

 

[CB91710]

This thread is ranking in the Top #10 in China now

They CAN make perfect Gibson copies.
They choose not to.
Fenders are, due to their Lego-like nature, the easiest guitars on the planet to fake.
But faked Fenders are generally the worst and easiest to spot.
They don't care, because their target buyers are either people who don't care and simply want something cheap with the name brand on the headstock (and nobody on the dance floor is going to care if it's a fake).... and their other target is the new player (or their parents) who do now know what to look for in a fake... or do not even know that fakes exist.

 

[mr. rj]

This is a purely hypothetical question. I know, no one would ever want to do that, but just for argument's sake...

What could we do to a genuine Gibson to fool someone into thinking it's a fake?

For whatever reason, this crazy thought happened to pop into my mind, today, and I think there's no way to achieve this.

Let's say you wanted to have a Gibson appear to be a good fake. This means that it would have to look like some master counterfeiter was trying to make it look real, so it would have to have genuine Gibson components. If it was, hypothetically speaking, a great counterfeit, there would always have to be something that would not look right, so an expert would be able to tell it is a fake.

So, now, if we wanted to fool an expert into thinking that a real Gibson was just a good fake, what would we do to it?

I really can't think of anything that one could do.

It's hopeless, LOL.

hmmmm, good question. Perhaps Tom Murphy would be good to ask, he as experience with making a real gibson faked to look like a real 1959, I mean imitated, I mean replicating, actually....ahhhh, I just confused myself.

 

[CB91710]

Their target market doesn’t use English letters.

The Asian market is huge.

Again... a target market that doesn't care whether or not it is real.

 

[tedtan]

How to make a real LP look fake? No broken headstock repair.

 

[Shelkonnery]

What could we do to a genuine Gibson to fool someone into thinking it's a fake?

Have it come with flawless G string setup straight from the factory.

 

[Adinol]

Well, I'm glad no one slammed me for starting such a silly thread. I was happy to find some hilarious replies.

I really like this one.

Mask and tint the back of the headstock to make it look like it has a scarf joint.

That's really funny.

I like this one, too.

The first thing I thought of was the bridge with screws which someone else said very early on. Another really easy thing would be an "off" truss-rod cover to say something like "Les Paul" in script, and then underneath that have "Standard" in block letters. Maybe even also mis-spell "Standard". How about adding some Chinese writing in the control cavity?

This one with the yellow tape is priceless.

Put it in a big ass Styrofoam box wrapped in yellow tape then get a middle aged man with his ass hanging out of his jeans to slowly cut through the tape with a box cutter.

When unboxed get him to say 'this will be a great guitar once I have changed the pickups, wiring, tuners, bridge and nut'

Boom, instant fake looking LP

Here are some ideas I came up with, after reading through the replies.

I'm thinking it would be fairly easy to enlarge and slightly deepen the control cavity. The rear hole of the switch cavity could also be enlarged, as if it had been drilled out with a metric size forstner bit. In both cases one would have to enlarge those cavities slightly beyond the existing screw holes for the covers. New covers would have to be made and those coudl be made from some thinner, or thicker plastic that is not the right kind of plastic.

If one would want to do some serious reworking, one could remove the fretboard and replace the original truss rod with a metric 2-way truss rod.

While on the subject of the fretboard I guess it would be fairly easy to remove the inlays and replace them with inlays that are made from some other material.

Change the fretboard radius to 16 inch and refret.

Replace bass side neck binding with new binding that has smaller diameter fret markers.

Thanks, guys, for pitching in your ideas.

Now I'm running off to my workshop to do some mods on my Gibson guitars.

The purpose of this venture: Should someone still my guitars the bastard won't get much money for them, LOL.

 

[catstrat]

Post a pic of literally any real Gibson over on The Gear Page and it wont be long before someone tells you its fake.

 

[Bobby Mahogany]

Are you saying my 1974 is a fake?!?!

Pic of the whole guitar or you're an asshole!

 

[CB91710]

Pic of the whole guitar or you're an asshole!

Pics of the whole guitar is going to make a difference?

 

[sparky2]

The easiest and most obvious.

Buy a 'three screw' truss rod cover from the internet.
Cut off two screw heads and glue them onto the two holes closest to the nut.

Remove the original Gibson factory truss rod cover, and install the fake one using just the top screw.

Instant fake!

 

[Bobby Mahogany]

Pics of the whole guitar is going to make a difference?

I like to see guitar pictures!

 

[mrblooze]

This is a purely hypothetical question. I know, no one would ever want to do that, but just for argument's sake...

What could we do to a genuine Gibson to fool someone into thinking it's a fake?

For whatever reason, this crazy thought happened to pop into my mind, today, and I think there's no way to achieve this.

Let's say you wanted to have a Gibson appear to be a good fake. This means that it would have to look like some master counterfeiter was trying to make it look real, so it would have to have genuine Gibson components. If it was, hypothetically speaking, a great counterfeit, there would always have to be something that would not look right, so an expert would be able to tell it is a fake.

So, now, if we wanted to fool an expert into thinking that a real Gibson was just a good fake, what would we do to it?

I really can't think of anything that one could do.

It's hopeless, LOL.

Take a 1959 Burst, put chromed hardware on it, replace the pots, and replace the PAFs with anything at all. The combination of Gibson serial number chaos and chrome will convince many that it's a '71-'74.

A knowledgeable collector will spot the spec differences (no pancake body, neck profile, volute), but I bet most would guess wrong, except the hopefuls who only look at the serial number and always assume they've discovered a '57 while looking at an early '70s guitar...

 

[Slashperryburst]

Luckily, I had that on dvd. If I'd had the vhs, the tracking would've been so bad, you'd think there was a blizzard.

 

[zdoggie]

get your old erector set out and build a draw bridge i'd be better time spent

zdog

 

[BKS]

Just say it is really a Chibson no changes needed....

 

[DBDM]

I would start with simply changing out all of the standard (imperial) hardware for metric. Change out the truss rod for a metric allen wrench one. Agree with posters who said shave off the nibs. Should fool most people.

People that think that all counterfeits are bad are simply seeing bad counterfeits. Many people posting here own fake Gibsons and do not know it. The "good ones" go undetected. Only the bad ones are bad.

Edit--there was a guy in Nashville a few years ago who imported several (dozen +) good fakes and sold them to Pawn shops in Nashville. He managed to fool 11 (eleven) pawn shops--no small feat in Nashville. One of the Pawn shop owners was suspicious because the gutar looked new but the guy had attempted to age the case (which looked fake). He called the cops who then went around and checked all the inventory at other pawn shops and discovered the other 10. there could have been many more? I actually was given one of them by a buddy (owner of one of the 11 pawn shops) who was fooled. I offered it to Gibson who did not want it (they actually have a whole closet full of fakes). I carved "fake" inside of all the cavities and gave it to a kid who had admired it. (disadvantaged kid who told me he went to Sam Ash every Saturday to play the guitars). I told both the kid and his mom it is a fake and cautioned him to never sell it. Anyone who were to ever buy it would have to not look very close to see it is a fake since I tried to make that as clear as possible without messing up the aesthetics for the kid. I played it along side one of my Custom shop models for my wife who sat with her back to me as I swapped up the 2 guitars and she could not tell which one I was playing. It was a "good fake". Hope it inspires the kid to play and wear it out and he becomes a lifelong player. his mom was thrilled that she did not have to drive to Sam Ash every Saturday.

Edit--Here is a news article from local TV news. This one says 6 were sold in Murfreesboro, Tn (southeast suburb of Nashville) but there were in fact 11 that were subsequently identified
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/fake-gibson-guitars-hit-music-city-market

The day I took it to Gibson was Feb 29,2020 (literally days before the Pandemic hit and a few weeks before Gibson shut down totally for the Pandemic--seems like a different time in life). They were at the beginning of the JC era and were more into downsizing and getting rid of stuff than acquiring more stuff. Was a sentinel day for me because that is the day I got my Buckethead LP. On the way into the factory there is a little hallway with several "special" ( but fairly recent) guitars hanging on the wall, gallery style. There was a Buckethead. I got pretty excited. A guy overheard me and said, "you know, I have one of those...call me". I did and now I have my Buckethead! They are pretty insistent that you not take pictures inside the factory so I did not. I did take a few outside though....
Below is a picture of the little hallway on the way in to the factory floor. The Buckethead is in the photo (not mine but the guitar that inspired the acquisition of mine).The whole entryway of the USA shop is lined with flamed maple.

 

[Slashperryburst]

Edit--there was a guy in Nashville a few years ago who imported several (dozen +) good fakes and sold them to Pawn shops in Nashville. He managed to fool 11 (eleven) pawn shops--no small feat in Nashville.

Right...