Counterfeit Gibson Guitars
It seems that the Chinese are making knock-offs of Gibson Guitars and people in the USA are buying these and selling them online. Gibson has a
page showing the differences and what to do if you get stung:
Gibson Leads Industry Fight Against Counterfeit Gibsons
Last year, 15-year-old Jonathan Jakubowski of Cary, North Carolina emptied out his savings account to purchase a Les Paul he found advertised in the local newspaper.
Of his decision to buy a Gibson, Jakubowski explains, �Eric Clapton is my main influence, and he played Les Pauls for a long time.�
Intending to purchase the advertised Les Paul Standard, Jonathan and his father visited the seller at his house, where they were persuaded instead to purchase a Wine Red Les Paul Custom, which the man said he�d bought off a traveling musician. Jonathan paid the man $1,000 for the guitar, but once he got it home, he could tell that something wasn�t right.
�I�d only played Les Pauls in the guitar shops, but something tipped me off, and I ended up going on the Internet to see what some typical signs are for a fake guitar,� Jakubowski says. �The first thing that struck me was that there were three screws in the truss rod cover instead of two.�
The staff at a local guitar shop confirmed Jakubowski�s suspicions�the guitar was a counterfeit. The high school sophomore alerted police, and following an investigation, the North Carolina man who�d acquired the guitar from a Chinese website and resold it to Jakubowski was arrested on two felony counts of criminal use of a counterfeit trademark.
The photos on the website make it pretty obvious which is which.
Posted by DaveH at July 16, 2009 10:40 AM