Greetings,
This is my first post here. I hope someone can help me figure out whether this 2010 Les Paul Traditional I bought on eBay 4 years ago is real or not. It's an absolutely authentic-looking guitar with just one glaring exception: there is a weird sanding & finish pattern on the back of the headstock and one of the digits in the serial number is a tad lower than the rest. Also the 1 in the year 2010 is a little longer or perhaps punched twice. (Please see first picture--mine is on the left, a new LP is on the right.)
Here's the problem--I've watched a dozen you-tube videos on the subject and this guitar passes every single quality/authenticity check with flying colors! Including the following:
one piece body and neck (no border lines in the wood)
correct bridge posts (no screwdriver slots)
tailpiece in correct position just slightly forward of the knob below it.
internal wiring looks dead-on correct including Gibson logos on pots (though you can't see them in the pic)
correct stickers on pickups (BB3 and 57 classic, and "patent applied for")
Neck binding correctly reaches up to meet the frets
Gibson logo looks perfect
correct truss rod nut with sawed-off washer thing
fretboard inlays look perfect
Headstock wood curves are sharp and symmetric
You can even see where the wings were glued onto the sides of the headstock
(I've attached a bunch of pics to try to show a lot of these things)
It doesn't make sense that someone would go through the trouble to make such a great fake but leave that one glaring defect????
So this is either a real Les Paul that someone modified by sanding the headstock and screwing with the serial numbers, or it's one of the best fakes ever produced.
I hope someone here can help me figure out which.
Thanks!!
UPDATE (two weeks later): I've been in contact with Gibson and they tell me that they are fairly certain the guitar is real, BUT--they have no record of this serial number. At this point (with the help and input of my forum mates below) I think the most likely scenario is that I have a stolen guitar. There's just no reason why any sane person would sand out the serial number of a perfectly good factory LP and stamp in a fake one--and do such a sh**ty job of it! So now the question is what to do about it and is it even possible to find the rightful owner.
This is my first post here. I hope someone can help me figure out whether this 2010 Les Paul Traditional I bought on eBay 4 years ago is real or not. It's an absolutely authentic-looking guitar with just one glaring exception: there is a weird sanding & finish pattern on the back of the headstock and one of the digits in the serial number is a tad lower than the rest. Also the 1 in the year 2010 is a little longer or perhaps punched twice. (Please see first picture--mine is on the left, a new LP is on the right.)
Here's the problem--I've watched a dozen you-tube videos on the subject and this guitar passes every single quality/authenticity check with flying colors! Including the following:
one piece body and neck (no border lines in the wood)
correct bridge posts (no screwdriver slots)
tailpiece in correct position just slightly forward of the knob below it.
internal wiring looks dead-on correct including Gibson logos on pots (though you can't see them in the pic)
correct stickers on pickups (BB3 and 57 classic, and "patent applied for")
Neck binding correctly reaches up to meet the frets
Gibson logo looks perfect
correct truss rod nut with sawed-off washer thing
fretboard inlays look perfect
Headstock wood curves are sharp and symmetric
You can even see where the wings were glued onto the sides of the headstock
(I've attached a bunch of pics to try to show a lot of these things)
It doesn't make sense that someone would go through the trouble to make such a great fake but leave that one glaring defect????
So this is either a real Les Paul that someone modified by sanding the headstock and screwing with the serial numbers, or it's one of the best fakes ever produced.
I hope someone here can help me figure out which.
Thanks!!
UPDATE (two weeks later): I've been in contact with Gibson and they tell me that they are fairly certain the guitar is real, BUT--they have no record of this serial number. At this point (with the help and input of my forum mates below) I think the most likely scenario is that I have a stolen guitar. There's just no reason why any sane person would sand out the serial number of a perfectly good factory LP and stamp in a fake one--and do such a sh**ty job of it! So now the question is what to do about it and is it even possible to find the rightful owner.
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