Possible fake ‘1958’ Les Paul Goldtop on eBay?

TeleMaster

stonevibe said:

Let's hope he listed it on £1 fees deal, or eBay will butt rape him if it sells!

£250 is the max final value fee lol. 

Andy79

TeleMaster said:

The NGD thread was all wow great congrats. This thread is ‘it’s iffy’. Lol. 

I don’t know anything about anything with regard to Les Paul guitars but the contrast of the 2 threads is fantastic . Everyone loves a good old gossip 

MikeS

No L shape tooling marks, holes in pups that shouldnt be there. Wrong channel shape in cavity, wrong pickup screw channels in cavity, they are wide and almost circular when they should be more lozenge shaped.

TeleMaster

I wonder how much he paid for it?

PhilKing

Is it me or does it look like it's been subject to extreme damp?  I have many 50's guitars but they don't have rust on the truss rod washers.  Also the corrosion on the one pickup base is pretty drastic too. I'm wondering if this is why the split in the top seam is so prominent.

designerseye88

My moneys on a conversion of some kind, pickup routs look like they were converted from p90's by someone who had little experience of conversions, frets are too big for a 58 and in one pic it looks like it still has the nibs, ageing doesn't look original and that split along the centre seem looks a bit nasty. Then you've got the hardware which mostly looks to be repro. If it's a 68 then i think the headstock angle might not be 17 degrees which could be a giveaway. Not really clear what this mongrel is but it doesn't look like an original 58. 

rickhenry68

Does anyone have cavity photos of this thing? I noticed the image links are not working in the original thread. 

Edit. 

Forget that, I just found them. There isn’t a single thing about this guitar that looks legit IMHO. 

rickhenry68

I suspect it has the same origins as this one https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?214410-Valuable-information-to-consider-when-evaluating-the-authenticity-of-a-vintage-burst

Arktik83

I wonder how many bedroom dealers have been offering him an R9 and a packet of cheese and onion for it?  Too many to count I'll bet!

Moe_Zambeek

rickhenry68 said:

I suspect it has the same origins as this one https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?214410-Valuable-information-to-consider-when-evaluating-the-authenticity-of-a-vintage-burst

That was eye opening!

Seziertisch

Moe_Zambeek said:

rickhenry68 said:

I suspect it has the same origins as this one https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?214410-Valuable-information-to-consider-when-evaluating-the-authenticity-of-a-vintage-burst

That was eye opening!

Nearly the most surprising thing was that the guy went through with the purchase before then trying to get it authenticated. 

Iamnobody

Seziertisch said:

Moe_Zambeek said:

rickhenry68 said:

I suspect it has the same origins as this one https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?214410-Valuable-information-to-consider-when-evaluating-the-authenticity-of-a-vintage-burst

That was eye opening!

Nearly the most surprising thing was that the guy went through with the purchase before then trying to get it authenticated. 

What a thread! One thing I’d say about poor old ‘zapper’ - for all his years, wealth etc he proves one thing. You can’t buy common sense! I’m sure he’s a nice bloke but I’ve seldom seen such naivety. 

Fair play to him for making the video though - he comes across more balanced in the video considering how nuts his online persona is.

SteveRobinson

It's textbook confirmation bias. 

Iamnobody

SteveRobinson said:

It's textbook confirmation bias. 

Indeed!

Danielsguitars

I played a dick knight conversion once, he thought it was a 50s one turned out it was 68 I think, should've been left alone imo and it was ok but nothing special 

IvisonGuitars

As far as I’m aware there is this ‘58, a ‘59 (which turned up on Facebook Marketplace - the most obvious place to sell a ‘Burst of course...), a ‘60 (linked in the post above) and a ‘55 TV Model I was asked to appraise a few months ago which all appear to be coming from the same source.

TV Model was a poor attempt at ageing a standard Junior with some period parts and was priced at £6k. 

A dealer in the EU recently listed a ‘59 TV Yellow DC Junior for £10k which was, again, a refinished Cherry CS guitar (the cherry filler had started to leach into the yellow causing it to turn pink). When contacted, he immediately ended the listing and realised he had been duped. 

As original 50’s Juniors rise in price again they are becoming more worthwhile for the fakers to make so PLEASE use care and due diligence and as always buyer beware. 

ICBM

I read that entire Les Paul Forum thread... I was bored . It was hard going in places but it did conclusively prove that people with deep pockets and little knowledge *do* buy vintage guitars without doing any proper research.

There are two technical errors mentioned that are worth correcting if anyone is interested...

1. The type/brand/age etc of the caps make no difference to the tone. Only the value matters, although some types can change value (drift) over time, or leak (in which case they must be considered faulty), which does.

2. It is perfectly possible to measure the value of a volume pot in situ without unsoldering anything - you just need to do a little maths.

Apart from that I’m entirely happy to want nothing to do with expensive vintage guitars at all.

HarrySeven

IvisonGuitars said:

As far as I’m aware there is this ‘58, a ‘59 (which turned up on Facebook Marketplace - the most obvious place to sell a ‘Burst of course...), a ‘60 (linked in the post above) and a ‘55 TV Model I was asked to appraise a few months ago which all appear to be coming from the same source.

And the (alleged) source is the (alleged) individual(s) named at various points in the thread?

SteveRobinson

You mean the dealer who insists their stock is a "collection"

Seziertisch

Part of the problem is that guitar fakery is a relatively low risk criminal enterprise with potentially high rewards.

Zapper took 500 quid as compensation for his troubles, when really the police should have been informed. Though of course, if that happened proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the sellers knew what they were selling was a fake would be nearly impossible. I’m sure one of them was a “bona fide” purchaser, probably bought it for cash off some guy 20 or 30 years ago, don’t remember the guy’s name, all very plausible and very difficult to prove/disprove.

If the fake had been of a better quality and the faker maker had done his homework and taken the time to get it right then there is a reasonable chance that it would have passed unnoticed into the community, and after having been bought and sold a couple of more times would acquire provenance.