Chinese "Gibsons" Fabulous Fakes **UPDATE!** : eBay Guides

Heres my original review/guide, but check out the new final paragraphs for my one year after report and some interesting news!

Just thought I would put together a brief guide to redress the balance here. What with all the guides created by UK guitar retailers claiming (unsurprisingly) that the Chinese are flooding the market with "firewood" guitars made of "plywood" and poorly manufactured etc etc. Well, let me tell you, my experience has been THE EXACT OPPOSITE!!!!

I saw a chinese ebay advert for a Brand New Electric Guitar. The ad featured pictures of a flametop Gibson Les Paul Custom with a case and Gold/Cream Hardware. My curiosity got the better of me and I went for it- £150.

What arrived throught the post 5 days later??? Firewood?? Plywood Rubbish ????? Excuse me guys -----NO!

It was a Gibson Les Paul Custom with a case and Gold/Cream Hardware.

I'm not a Gibson Ultra Perfectionist but I've played, dismantled, studied and abused electric guitars for 30 years since I was 10 years old and what these Chinese guys sent me was a Gibson Style Guitar of comparable or better quality than anything else on the market at the moment.

You can take it as read that the guitar I recieved looked just like a new genuine Gibson Les Paul Custom Flametop. I admit that Gibson probably never made a Flametop Custom but whoknows what their future plans are.

OK so we are being told that these guitars are fakes??? I'm curious to know why the Chinese would go to such extreme lengths to fake guitars in order to make themselves a hundred quid profit.

Just let me quickly give you a breakdown on my findings:

Weight of my guitar approx 10.5lbs (airline tells me it weighs 18lbs including the case) The body is a solid piece of wood with what seems to be a flame maple top. It is bound with custom edging and is finished with a thick rich antique look nitro cellulose. It is a very acceptable finish but perhaps not quite up to the quality standard of US Gibsons.

The neck is set in and is very playable. The fretboard appears to be rosewood. The frets are gold anodised and very well fitted. The pearl inlays are all square and well laid into the fretboard. The headstock features a Gibson Logo and bell shaped two screw truss rod cover marked Les Paul in script over the word Custom.

The tuners are gold Grovers and I cant see any difference at all to the chrome Grovers on my Guild acoustic apart from the gold plate.

The humbuckers are gold plated and my only observation is that the pole screws appear to be solid brass and slightly oversized. I took the pickups out and they are an exact copy of a PAF pickup and feature the Gibson logo engraved into the brass backing plate. I havent dismantled further but I bet they are Alnico magnets. 

The potentiometers and switch seem to be stock items of good quality but are not Gibson but just as good as anything a guitar parts supplier would offer. Jack Plate is gold plated and just like a Gibson.

Bridge is a tune o matic complete with all the fittings and a stop tail piece both heavy gold plated.

The cream plastics seem to be slightly inferior quality but  I am comparing them to a 1983 Tokai Love Rock currently in my collection. They seem on a par with current Epiphone and Vintage offerings. (Interestingly the holes for the scratchguard screws etc seem to have been aligned for slightly heavier plastic)

How does it play and sound? Great. No buzzes hums or crackle. Smooth pots and all working exactly right. The pickups are warm and give a great chunky les paul sound. Overdrives my valve combo a treat. And the sustain............endless!!!!

The fat frets and low action make this a very comfortable easy guitar to play. Stays in tune perfectly and is a joy to own.

So is it a fake? Maybe but it interests me to know why if it was made in China by a factory of fakers on minimal wages with handtools and elderly machinery would they bother to:

Fake Flame Maple? (Surely they'd just knock out sprayed solid colours?)

Use solid woods to recreate the heavy weight feel and sustain of a genuine Les Paul?

Individually stamp each headstock with different serial numbers (showing a production date of 1996 in my case).(Surely they'd just have one stamp for all?)

Construct brass backed engraved PAF copy pickups?

And the case - its a great quality vinyl covered copy of the classic les paul case featuring locks and fittings that are identical to those on current new Gibsons from America.

Summary:

I am going to make a radical claim here and lets see if it promotes any discussion:

I think these guitars have come from the Gibson Guitar plant established in China a few years ago. I suspect they could be a batch that was sent over to China from the States for evaluation/finishing/experimentation.Perhaps the Chinese were instructed to source local materials for some of the hardware and plastics. But the guitar underneath (to my mind) is easily comparable to current Gibsons.

My Advice: Grab one while they're still available. For £150 - £200 nothing else comes near.

OK The update starts here:

I took my new "fake" Gibson on a 8 month extended trip to India South Asia. Thats right, thinking that I needed a cheapo guitar to lug around I thought better to sacrifice this than one of my more valuable guitars. So when I left it was in brand new condition virtually unplayed.

Part of me was fully expecting it to warp in transit, fall to pieces, deteriorate rapidly in the humidity or generally break down and misbehave.

HOW WRONG WAS I?????

After 8 months of use and abuse this guitar is still perfect. the neck is true and everything is functioning as it should. Into the bargain add the following bonus developments:

After leaving the guitar accidentally on my verandah in direct full sunlight for two days (not recommended) the flame top has become more intense!! and the cream plastics have developed a deeper older colour. Slowly the gold plating on the hardware has worn/faded in rubbing areas and the grain in the fingerboard has become richer.Its like it has had an accelerated maturing process and now this guitar looks like a much loved and cherished $3000 relic!

Ive been playing it nearly everday and just like the best of guitars it has developed a more mature feel and sound. Overall I am absolutely thrilled by this guitar and the way it has behaved just as I would expect a genuine USA Gibson to. Its had possibly the hardest first year any guitar could have (including 9 domestic flights round India and Sri Lanka) and it has met the challenge admirably.

Incidentally they sell rip off Gibsons in India labelled GIVSON and these really are firewood guitars. But as for the Chinese Gibson Fakes I say:

If it looks like a Gibson, sounds like a Gibson, plays like a Gibson, is as durable as a Gibson, ages like a Gibson even smells like a Gibson - thats good enough for me!