NGD! Les Paul Custom

[Nimitz]

$120 dollars for a fake sounds like you got ripped off broham.

[clifffclaven]

I own 4 gibsons. Its a chinese made fake. for $120, its ok if it plays well.

[CowboyFromHell]

Seems to play fine, pups aren't bad, not great but not bad. Has a pretty good feel to it. And as I said earlier, at $120 for it in pretty much new condition, I don't really care if it's real or fake. It's something I can play if I want, tear apart and totally redo if I want, something to have a lil fun with. Time will tell if I decide to leave it as is and just play it or redo it. Maybe a pups swap at some point to get a lil more on the bottom end but overall, either way I'm cool with it.

[Evol]

Does it have binding over or under the fret ends?

[Evol]

Another thing to look for is the Fibson's will have a scarf joint where a real Custom won't. The hardware will be Epiphone (check the bridge) or a cheaper clone, the pickups and wiring will be crap, the knobs will be tilted, and the switch will just plain feel cheap. The binding work will also be quite ugly compared to a real Les Paul. The body wood on some of the cheaper ones will be lighter than Mahogany, basswood, or something equally sucky sucky.

Fake Grover tuners that don't hold for shit are commonplace, and check to make sure it actually HAS a trussrod.

Having said that, if you find a good one made my a decent builder they aren't half bad for dicking around with.

Here's mine, I had it built with ebony instead of the crappy rosewood :




It's made from Mahogany, with a real maple cap, acoustically it sounds just like any of my other Les Pauls, and if I were blind folded there would be no way to ever tell the difference. With the electronics changed it sounds the same plugged in as the others too.

[CowboyFromHell]

Ok, yes I know my cam sucks. Oh well. Here's some more pics, the ones that weren't too damn glared to be able to see shit.


The tuners say Grover btw.


Next shot is a bit bright from the glare but does show that the binding does in fact cover the fret ends.


A sucky but none the less closeup of the inlays if it helps any.


It does in fact have a truss rod, I removed the cover and checked. Here's a blurry pic of the cover if it does any good.

[RacerX]

I see your forehead!

[straycat]

Import bridge (metric) never used by Gibson on a USA guitar.
No split diamond inlay on the headstock.
Lower bout on the body has too sharp a point.
Pick guard should be 3 or 5 ply.
Lets see a pic of the serial numbers if they have a deep font its a dead giveaway.

[straycat]

Pull the neck pick up and lets see the tenon I'll bet you will see a gap on the treble side where the neck is glued in.
Gibson have no gap.
Don't get me started on these Chinese fakes I have seen hundreds of these and just looking at the pics it is a Chinese one all the way.
Pots don't even line up on most of these.
For $120 bucks you did ok and if it pays fine then who cares as long as you like it.
But its not a Gibson L.P. custom thats for sure.
I have been dealing with these for at least 5-6 years and there are some real horror stories of the people and how they were ripped off.
China can kiss my ass Vietnam was full of those commies.

[Evol]

Okay, so taking everything in account, here's what I see..

A "Custom" with a rosewood fretboard. This should be the biggest red flag of all. (The link you posted earlier were actually Custom Classics with baked maple boards, not rosewood. The Slash model is based off the Standard not the Custom model)
When you order a Fibson, they come with rosewood unless you pay them extra for ebony. So there's that first.

The headstock does not have the binding that a Custom should have.

It's hard to tell from your pictures but the fret nibs do not appear to have binding over them.

The knob placement is incorrect as previously mentioned.

The pickguard, pickup rings and screws look HORRIBLY cheap. Why is the neck pickup upside down?

The bridge appears to be a metric which would be incorrect.

So.. take all that in consideration and what does that tell you? Yes, it's 100% fake. But at least you didn't pay a bunch for it, and you don't have to worry about jacking it up or anything I guess.

One last thing, try taking off the control cover and inspect the route and pots if you like, but I bet you anything they are incorrect as well.

[straycat]

Here is what the headstock should look like.This is an 81.

[straycat]

Here is a shot of a serial number of a fake,the stamp is way too deep and the made in USA font is the wrong size as well.
You can see how sloppy the stamping was done.

[Sephiroth]

No split diamond inlay on the headstock.
Lower bout on the body has too sharp a point.

Some customs don't have the diamond. See some of the various artist sig models made over the years.

The only LP made with a pointed horn I know of is the LP Florentine made a couple of years ago. However that's not a Florentine since those had a nice plaintop finish and also had a factory Bigsby.

The headstock does not have the binding that a Custom should have.

Exactly correct. The head should have the same 5-ply binding as the body, and only the fretboard on a custom has single-ply. Personally that was the first red flag about this being a fake to me. Even the Epi's have the 5-ply head binding. Plus the lack of the gold "Les Paul" signature on the head in between the pegs which I have never seen except on juniors and students rules it out as even a standard.

[CowboyFromHell]

Ok, so it's not genuine. That's cool. Means I can do whatever to it and it really won't hurt much. I have seen some of these "Fibsons" that were total POS and some that were pretty good quality. I seem to have a decent one and have learned alot from the education you guys provided. For that, I thank you all. I also want to thank you for helping me without kicking the crap out of me and making feel about two inches tall. Once again JCF demonstrates that it's a class act (mostly), definitely very informative, and makes me proud to be a member of one of the best communities of guitar afficianados to be found on the web.

[murkat]

As a former Gibson custom shop employee,
I am glad that the the obvious has been already pointed out.
A great, well educated group of folks here.

J