Initials under TR cover..

[1980flameburst]

hi i havnt posted or been on in a pretty long time but, ive asked about my 1980 LP standard and some of the wierd things about it before so unless you want me to tell you about it ill leave that for later...

anyways while going to my local small guitar store the past weekend, the owner there also had his 1980 LP custom, white, and said under the TR cover were the initialls "R.R"
of course the first thing he would think are maybe Randy Rhodes could have owned the guitar...? but i thought Randy had one custom didnt he? and it was older than '80.
anyways after seeing that i removed my TRC and found that i had what looks like a signature or initials as well. mine were illegible though. the closest thing it looks like it spells is "Dio"...but i doubt that . i thought maybe the builder/assembler of my LP put his initals/mark on it...any other Norlin LP owners have initials under their TRC? did Gibson do that?
someone else told me maybe they made custom guitars for certain people and labeled them under the cover...im mostly thinking its the worker at gibson leaving his mark

 

[Satch0922]

Randy Rhodes

It is "Rhoads".....

Randy had two Customs, a white 74-75 (lots of controversy there as to which year it really is) and a 57 he acquired shortly before his death. His family have both of them locked away.

 

[1980flameburst]

okays apart from one completely useless reply from denis (that he deleted), in your reply thanks for confirming the Randy thing (also sorry i spelt that wrong =//) Satch.
now how about the initials thing, normal in Norlins?
its really not that big of a thing, im just curious about my guitars history

 

[BCRGreg]

It may have been an inspection thing.

 

[dennistruckdriver]

.....

 

[Satch0922]

.....

 

[dwagar]

it may have been a previous owner marking his initials in it for ID purposes.

 

[45WinMag]

It may have been an inspection thing.

Randy Rhoads was inspecting Norlins?!!!

 

[sangandongo]

hi i havnt posted or been on in a pretty long time but, ive asked about my 1980 LP standard and some of the wierd things about it before so unless you want me to tell you about it ill leave that for later...

anyways while going to my local small guitar store the past weekend, the owner there also had his 1980 LP custom, white, and said under the TR cover were the initialls "R.R"
of course the first thing he would think are maybe Randy Rhodes could have owned the guitar...? but i thought Randy had one custom didnt he? and it was older than '80.
anyways after seeing that i removed my TRC and found that i had what looks like a signature or initials as well. mine were illegible though. the closest thing it looks like it spells is "Dio"...but i doubt that . i thought maybe the builder/assembler of my LP put his initals/mark on it...any other Norlin LP owners have initials under their TRC? did Gibson do that?
someone else told me maybe they made custom guitars for certain people and labeled them under the cover...im mostly thinking its the worker at gibson leaving his mark

I sort of have that on my Norlin made ES-335 CRR "Country Rock Regular" but I doubt this was done at the factory...

 

[Cookie-boy]

Isn't it a fairly common thing, particularly amongst travelling/gigging musicians to mark their instruments? Always was in my day.

 

[sangandongo]

Isn't it a fairly common thing, particularly amongst travelling/gigging musicians to mark their instruments? Always was in my day.

I have marked all of mine in an identical way so that if the worst happens and I get lucky enough that there's ever question of ownership, I can open up one of my other instruments and say, "hey, look here! same marking."

I'm not foolish enough to think that a stolen guitar would ever get returned though.

 

[Lance_S]

Mine has a signature, actually just initials, inside the pu cavity, i always assumed it was from one of the production people on the line. I think it's a fairly common thing. But unless someone completely refinished my guitar I could spot it out of 1000, a few personal dings that would be tough to reproduce.

 

[diceman]

... (also sorry i spelt that wrong =//) Satch.
....

You spelt "spelled" incorrectly.

 

[tw1st40]

Mine has a signature, actually just initials, inside the pu cavity, i always assumed it was from one of the production people on the line. I think it's a fairly common thing. But unless someone completely refinished my guitar I could spot it out of 1000, a few personal dings that would be tough to reproduce.

I think the point here is that the initials under the TR cover would be much more successful in identifying it as your guitar than a few dings.

"HEY MAN! THAT'S MY GUITAR! I can tell because it has a 1/4" ding in between the bridge and the stopbar."
Response: "Sure it is bud. Get the fuck outta here."

Alternatively:
"Hey nice guitar. Where'd you get it?"
"Uh... I traded an old tele for it a few years back. it's my favourite."
"Well I have reason to believe that's my recently stolen guitar, and a quick look under the TR cover will confirm or deny this... you could simply remove it, or we could involve the police."

Though it would probably not end so well, it seems like a better way than trying to prove it based on dings.

P.S. Lance, your's is one of my favourite Les Pauls I have seen.

 

[Lance_S]

I think the point here is that the initials under the TR cover would be much more successful in identifying it as your guitar than a few dings.

"HEY MAN! THAT'S MY GUITAR! I can tell because it has a 1/4" ding in between the bridge and the stopbar."
Response: "Sure it is bud. Get the fuck outta here."

Alternatively:
"Hey nice guitar. Where'd you get it?"
"Uh... I traded an old tele for it a few years back. it's my favourite."
"Well I have reason to believe that's my recently stolen guitar, and a quick look under the TR cover will confirm or deny this... you could simply remove it, or we could involve the police."

Though it would probably not end so well, it seems like a better way than trying to prove it based on dings.

P.S. Lance, your's is one of my favourite Les Pauls I have seen.

Thanks a ton. I am with you on the i.d. I wasn't suggesting it's the best route for ident as much as I could I.D. mine from someone elses. The reality it that if someone approached me and suggested they wanted to starting pulling equipment off my guitar to prove it was "theirs" they better need a court order and a small army. I.D. is useless unless you run into a situation where you actually have access to the guitar and a party willing to potentially prove that their purchase was fraudulent and then be willing to give it up at no potential reimbursement to the accused. Remember, under law, stolen property must be given back to the proper owner, "buyer be ware". So though I am sure it helps us sleep better to have some form of I.D. attached to our axe in a secret place that no one knows about but us, maybe in invisible, only seen under infared lighting, ink. In the long run, a good insurance policy may be a better way to go. At least that way, you are sure to at least get replacement value. Now if you installed a GPS microchip........

L

 

[Killowatt]

"Oz" is what's scribbled under the TR cover of my '82 custom.
As far as identifying stolen Les Pauls, I would think the serial # would suffice. And if someone would go through the trouble of changing that, they could change other identifiers as well.

 

[guitaraddict]

My old '77 had initials under the trc to. It came that way from the factory, I was also assuming it was a inspection thing.