Let's Talk About Fake Gibsons

[@PipeCat1965]

I recently bought my first Chibson, knowingly, from another YT creator, and it came with after-market Seymour Duncan Seth Lover pickups. They sound great. This guitar is so wildly colored, there is no real question as to whether it is a real Gibson, LOL.

[@ChockHolocaust]

To be honest, the way to impress someone with a guitar, is not the logo, but to play it well. And I agree with you about Epiphone guitars, although we should clarify that there are both good and not so great Epiphone Les Pauls. I have Four genuine Gibson Les Pauls (different models), a genuine Gibson Melody Maker, and two 'Chibsons' (one is a fake Melody Maker and the other is a fake Les Paul), plus I have two Epiphone Les Pauls, one being a 2003 Studio and the other being one of those more recent cheap E1 Les Pauls with a bolt-on neck, single coils, and which they've subsequently marketed as a Melody Maker. Now of those two Epiphones, the E1 is pretty much what you'd expect, being a cheap beginners guitar, but the 2003 Les Paul Studio is a really fantastic guitar; better in fact that most of my Gibson Les Pauls actually. With regard to Chibsons, the fact that I'm decent at making and modding guitars meant that I was prepared for some horror stories when buying a couple of them purely out of curiosity, because I figured I'd be able to sort them out and didn't care about messing with them in terms of taking drills and saws to them should that prove necessary (and indeed it did). Of the two Chibsons I have, the Les Paul is actually a pretty well-built guitar, although it took me swapping out the pickups, changing the bridge, nut tuners and electrics and adding a Bigsby (since I didn't really care about drilling holes into a cheap knock off) to make it into something you'd want to play. After all that work, it looks alright and plays well, but it wouldn't fool anyone who really knew Gibsons for more than a few seconds if they had a good look at it. The 'Chibson' Melody Maker looked very little like a genuine Melody Maker when it showed up (it was months before it actually did show up and to be honest it wasn't exactly dirt cheap either and one of the control knobs was cracked when it arrived too!). It required significant reshaping of the headstock to make that correctly shaped for a MM, since it had a Les Paul-style headstock which is of course incorrect for a Melody Maker (the Gibson logo on it wasn't put on straight either, which gives you an idea of how thrown together those things are). Fortunately for me, since I do have a genuine Gibson Melody Maker, it was easy to know what to do to correct its shape. Work I did to it included filling the peg holes in the headstock because I reshaped it to look like it should do, drilling out new peg holes, facing it with a veneer to cover all that surgery, installing new tuners since the ones it came with were garbage. I had to make quite a few other tweaks to it to get it to look alright including to the scratchplate (adding the Melody Maker text) and adjusting the pick up installation. To be fair, it does now play okay and does look sort of half decent. But... If we hypothetically say that all the work I put into the above two Chibsons to get them looking and playing alright was charged at a modest ten quid an hour - good luck finding someone competent to do it for that rate of pay - and we also include the cost of parts, there is no doubt that those two Chibsons would have ended up costing more than just buying two of the real things, and as sorted out as they now are, they're still fakes. So... If all of the above doesn't tell people everything they need to know about why you should avoid Chibsons, and instead just buy a legit guitar (a decent Korean-made Epiphone Les Paul from around 2000 or so would be my recommendation if someone really must have a Les Paul but doesn't have a lot of cash) and not worry about what logo is on the end of it, then I don't know what will.

[@SES8856-z5u]

Interesting. Up until now I didn't realize that there even were fake Melody Makers. I bought one used last year for 800 and you have me wondering if it is a fake or not. All that matters is how it sounds but I am curious.

[@ChockHolocaust]

@@SES8856-z5u At the time there was only one fake MM on DHGate, and that one is no longer there, which is no bad thing as it was not an accurate copy (at least not until I seriously altered its appearance with some major woodworking surgery), so that one would not be something I'd recommend if it was still available. DHGate/Ali Express etc do appear to have what look like more accurate MM fakes now, which are about 200 quid, assuming the pictures are of what you'd get if you ordered one - they could just be pics of a real one and not what you actually get - so ordering one would be a crap shoot to say the least, given my own experience. Moreover, it's worth bearing in mind that my genuine 2009 Gibson Melody Maker which, apart from having some minor buckle rash on the back (which I spot resprayed anyway) was in mint condition and cost me 375 quid, whereas that fake one cost me 235 quid, so it was only 150 quid more for the real thing. The fake one and the real one are different models though; my real 2009 one is a single cutaway single pickup variant in black, whereas the fake one is meant to be an mid-Sixties double cutaway twin pick up version in sunburst, which it does sort of look like now I've altered it although the cutaway horns are not quite the correct curvature. As far as how it sounds, it's still got the pick ups it came with and is not bad to be fair. And despite the shape inaccuracies, I have to admit that it is well put together and when I replaced the crappy tuners with some genuine Kluson three on a plate ones, it holds tune very well too. None of this is intended to encourage people to get one of them though, particularly when you can get a used real one in good condition for not a lot more cash.

[@blackettco]

Interesting topic, thank you! Never understood the need to buy knock-offs to impress somebody. Maybe they should just start producing full-scale "guitar models" from plastic, so that people could hang them on walls (if all they need are decorations). Maybe those models could even be officially licensed by Gibson, but cost like 50 bucks.

[@Relayer6a]

Just because your "friend" wants one for decorative purposes doesn't mean that's what happens with most of them. And for me, An Asian made guitar that's not made in a factory owned by the company's name that's on the headstock, is a fake too. But people buy them because of what it says on the headstock, thus why many people don't want Epiphone.

[@SES8856-z5u]

I thought Gibson Les Pauls had mother of pearl inlays. Does anyone know if this is the case?

[@budgetguitarist]

High end Gibsons have mother of pearl inlays, but the low end Gibsons like the Tribute series use pearloid or some other cheaper material.