Possible fake ‘1958’ Les Paul Goldtop on eBay?

Skipped

Here are my conclusions from the marathon LPF thread.

1. The OP made a terrible mistake when better options were available.

2. There are many outstanding contrubutions  from Jumping@Shadows/Yukki. I don't know if we will see him post here again but I would like to see him made very welcome. You may hate Conversions, but his experience and expertise would be valuable to our forum.

A Conversion is simply a heavily modified 50s Les Paul.

Surely you don't hate Old Black?

Surely you don't hate every single one of Les Paul's personal working guitars? 

3. There were  also many outstanding contributions to that thread  from J. J. Blair, a great musician, and a world class sound engineer. (Johnny Cash, The Who, Rod Stewart.......)

His main gigging guitar is a '53 Les Paul Conversion.

Like I say....If you want a 50s Les Paul, there are options, for a very small number of people, if they can be very patient.

meltedbuzzbox

Skipped said:

Here are my conclusions from the marathon LPF thread.

1. The OP made a terrible mistake when better options were available.

2. There are many outstanding contrubutions  from Jumping@Shadows/Yukki. I don't know if we will see him post here again but I would like to see him made very welcome. You may hate Conversions, but his experience and expertise would be valuable to our forum.

A Conversion is simply a heavily modified 50s Les Paul.

Surely you don't hate Old Black?

Surely you don't hate every single one of Les Paul's personal working guitars? 

3. There were  also many outstanding contributions to that thread  from J. J. Blair, a great musician, and a world class sound engineer. (Johnny Cash, The Who, Rod Stewart.......)

His main gigging guitar is a '53 Les Paul Conversion.

Like I say....If you want a 50s Les Paul, there are options, for a very small number of people, if they can be very patient.

I really feel that Yukki was part of the problem.
A very talented luthier but ultimately driven by the pursuit of money.

HarrySeven

Seziertisch said:

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.

And that is a real danger...if the fake is good enough, it gathers a sheen of history and believability.

Andy79

The world of 50s Les Pauls and Fenders is a dark and murky place. Even if my disposable income rose by an order of magnitude I think I would still be happy with Silvertones and the like. Nobody as yet making fakery there to bag a dishonest 400 quid

fretfinder

meltedbuzzbox said:

Skipped said:

Here are my conclusions from the marathon LPF thread.

1. The OP made a terrible mistake when better options were available.

2. There are many outstanding contrubutions  from Jumping@Shadows/Yukki. I don't know if we will see him post here again but I would like to see him made very welcome. You may hate Conversions, but his experience and expertise would be valuable to our forum.

A Conversion is simply a heavily modified 50s Les Paul.

Surely you don't hate Old Black?

Surely you don't hate every single one of Les Paul's personal working guitars? 

3. There were  also many outstanding contributions to that thread  from J. J. Blair, a great musician, and a world class sound engineer. (Johnny Cash, The Who, Rod Stewart.......)

His main gigging guitar is a '53 Les Paul Conversion.

Like I say....If you want a 50s Les Paul, there are options, for a very small number of people, if they can be very patient.

I really feel that Yukki was part of the problem.
A very talented luthier but ultimately driven by the pursuit of money.

I’d have to agree with you on that one. His skills with paint spraying and intricate wood repairs are undeniable. But even when the donor guitar has a multi-piece maple top, no centre join, holes plugged, damaged wood repairs, pickup routs filled etc it still becomes a wannabe burst. It would take a lot less work to restore a Goldtop, but the mongrel bursts are worth more money to him and that overrides the restoration potential. He can’t be blamed for wanting to make the best living he can for his family and I guess at the end of the day he’s just responding to the market - the lore of the burst is such that buyers are queuing up with their £15k plus. Funny old world.

ICBM

fretfinder said:

I’d have to agree with you on that one. His skills with paint spraying and intricate wood repairs are undeniable. But even when the donor guitar has a multi-piece maple top, no centre join, holes plugged, damaged wood repairs, pickup routs filled etc it still becomes a wannabe burst. It would take a lot less work to restore a Goldtop, but the mongrel bursts are worth more money to him and that overrides the restoration potential. He can’t be blamed for wanting to make the best living he can for his family and I guess at the end of the day he’s just responding to the market - the lore of the burst is such that buyers are queuing up with their £15k plus. Funny old world.

Butchering a probably unique factory maple-capped LP Custom to make a very obviously patched-up "burst" conversion really wasn't a good thing to do though, even if it was actually worth more like that than properly restored as a Custom... which I'm not sure about.

In my opinion... I'd have loved that Custom, if I could have afforded it. No interest in a fake "burst" at all.

WezV

fretfinder said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

Skipped said:

Here are my conclusions from the marathon LPF thread.

1. The OP made a terrible mistake when better options were available.

2. There are many outstanding contrubutions  from Jumping@Shadows/Yukki. I don't know if we will see him post here again but I would like to see him made very welcome. You may hate Conversions, but his experience and expertise would be valuable to our forum.

A Conversion is simply a heavily modified 50s Les Paul.

Surely you don't hate Old Black?

Surely you don't hate every single one of Les Paul's personal working guitars? 

3. There were  also many outstanding contributions to that thread  from J. J. Blair, a great musician, and a world class sound engineer. (Johnny Cash, The Who, Rod Stewart.......)

His main gigging guitar is a '53 Les Paul Conversion.

Like I say....If you want a 50s Les Paul, there are options, for a very small number of people, if they can be very patient.

I really feel that Yukki was part of the problem.
A very talented luthier but ultimately driven by the pursuit of money.

I’d have to agree with you on that one. His skills with paint spraying and intricate wood repairs are undeniable. But even when the donor guitar has a multi-piece maple top, no centre join, holes plugged, damaged wood repairs, pickup routs filled etc it still becomes a wannabe burst. It would take a lot less work to restore a Goldtop, but the mongrel bursts are worth more money to him and that overrides the restoration potential. He can’t be blamed for wanting to make the best living he can for his family and I guess at the end of the day he’s just responding to the market - the lore of the burst is such that buyers are queuing up with their £15k plus. Funny old world.

But you do at least get before, during and after pics of his work.  He isn't afraid to let the work he has done show, not unusal to see evidence of his plugs, which could hidden with a different finish choice

 His work is clear honest restoration and conversion, even if you think all goldtops should stay as goldtops

Seziertisch

WezV said:

fretfinder said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

Skipped said:

Here are my conclusions from the marathon LPF thread.

1. The OP made a terrible mistake when better options were available.

2. There are many outstanding contrubutions  from Jumping@Shadows/Yukki. I don't know if we will see him post here again but I would like to see him made very welcome. You may hate Conversions, but his experience and expertise would be valuable to our forum.

A Conversion is simply a heavily modified 50s Les Paul.

Surely you don't hate Old Black?

Surely you don't hate every single one of Les Paul's personal working guitars? 

3. There were  also many outstanding contributions to that thread  from J. J. Blair, a great musician, and a world class sound engineer. (Johnny Cash, The Who, Rod Stewart.......)

His main gigging guitar is a '53 Les Paul Conversion.

Like I say....If you want a 50s Les Paul, there are options, for a very small number of people, if they can be very patient.

I really feel that Yukki was part of the problem.
A very talented luthier but ultimately driven by the pursuit of money.

I’d have to agree with you on that one. His skills with paint spraying and intricate wood repairs are undeniable. But even when the donor guitar has a multi-piece maple top, no centre join, holes plugged, damaged wood repairs, pickup routs filled etc it still becomes a wannabe burst. It would take a lot less work to restore a Goldtop, but the mongrel bursts are worth more money to him and that overrides the restoration potential. He can’t be blamed for wanting to make the best living he can for his family and I guess at the end of the day he’s just responding to the market - the lore of the burst is such that buyers are queuing up with their £15k plus. Funny old world.

But you do at least get before, during and after pics of his work.  He isn't afraid to let the work he has done show, not unusal to see evidence of his plugs, which could hidden with a different finish choice

 His work is clear honest restoration and conversion, even if you think all goldtops should stay as goldtops

Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Sad but true.

Moe_Zambeek

Why anyone would settle for a burst when you could have a goldtop is a continuing mystery to me

Iamnobody

WezV said:

fretfinder said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

Skipped said:

Here are my conclusions from the marathon LPF thread.

1. The OP made a terrible mistake when better options were available.

2. There are many outstanding contrubutions  from Jumping@Shadows/Yukki. I don't know if we will see him post here again but I would like to see him made very welcome. You may hate Conversions, but his experience and expertise would be valuable to our forum.

A Conversion is simply a heavily modified 50s Les Paul.

Surely you don't hate Old Black?

Surely you don't hate every single one of Les Paul's personal working guitars? 

3. There were  also many outstanding contributions to that thread  from J. J. Blair, a great musician, and a world class sound engineer. (Johnny Cash, The Who, Rod Stewart.......)

His main gigging guitar is a '53 Les Paul Conversion.

Like I say....If you want a 50s Les Paul, there are options, for a very small number of people, if they can be very patient.

I really feel that Yukki was part of the problem.
A very talented luthier but ultimately driven by the pursuit of money.

I’d have to agree with you on that one. His skills with paint spraying and intricate wood repairs are undeniable. But even when the donor guitar has a multi-piece maple top, no centre join, holes plugged, damaged wood repairs, pickup routs filled etc it still becomes a wannabe burst. It would take a lot less work to restore a Goldtop, but the mongrel bursts are worth more money to him and that overrides the restoration potential. He can’t be blamed for wanting to make the best living he can for his family and I guess at the end of the day he’s just responding to the market - the lore of the burst is such that buyers are queuing up with their £15k plus. Funny old world.

But you do at least get before, during and after pics of his work.  He isn't afraid to let the work he has done show, not unusal to see evidence of his plugs, which could hidden with a different finish choice

 His work is clear honest restoration and conversion, even if you think all goldtops should stay as goldtops

Agreed I used to enjoy reading his work, like your posts and others in the trade that post here,  it has more value to me as a reader than arty home shots of people’s new guitars that they’ve just bought from a shop. 

Those NGD posts have their place as well of course - content makes the forum, but it’s a shame that we don’t get to see his luthier talent anymore - presumably due to the negative  commentary. 

Seziertisch

Moe_Zambeek said:

Why anyone would settle for a burst when you could have a goldtop is a continuing mystery to me

I own a burst, an Orville by Gibson one from the early 90s. I think the flametop is even a solid one as opposed to laminate, which a lot of them are. 

I have considered getting it goldtopped or done in one of the Fender custom colours, like shell pink or ice blue metallic. Sunburst is nice, but just so vanilla.

WezV

Seziertisch said:

Moe_Zambeek said:

Why anyone would settle for a burst when you could have a goldtop is a continuing mystery to me

I own a burst, an Orville by Gibson one from the early 90s. I think the flametop is even a solid one as opposed to laminate, which a lot of them are. 

I have considered getting it goldtopped or done in one of the Fender custom colours, like shell pink or ice blue metallic. Sunburst is nice, but just so vanilla.

The first flame top LP i built got a goldtop finish

oldfoxy

At the end of the day 80% of the people who can afford a 50s LP will want a burst not a gold top.  He supplies what the market wants......

Skipped

I can not speak for the motivation  of all  Conversion owners because I do not know all of them personally. I can only say this.

1.jumping@shadows has cheerfully told us that most people are more interested in Sunburst than gold top, so I am not going to deny that.

2. Many 'Burst owners on LPF are Conversion owners. I have just mentioned a producer/sound engineer who owns a 'Burst and a 50s Custom, but gigs with a '53 Conversion which he describes as an "outstanding guitar".

Do we seriously think that these 'Burst owners were looking for a "wannabee 'Burst" or whatever term you prefer? The idea is preposterous.

3. Robben Ford is now playing a Conversion. He has said that every other Les Paul he has owned was a stepping stone to this guitar, which is exactly what he wanted at a fraction of the price. Is anyone seriously suggesting that Robben Ford has spent the last few years looking for a "mongrel 'Burst"?

4 Joe Bonamassa now owns a Conversion. He has used the guitar for the whole freaking show at times. The guitar sounds great. It looks terrible. (Brown Sunburst). He is not having it refinished because he does not care what it looks like. He only cares that it is a great guitar.

Please show a bit of respect for these Conversion owners and stop making assumptions about their motivation to buy a heavily modified 50s Les Paul. They are not judging your motivation to buy a Gibson Historic Les Paul and they are not calling you a Pretend Vintage Guitar Owner. 

There can be no doubt that many Conversions were carried out in the flame obsessed 80s when the customer wanted and demanded a flame top. But the idea that a guitarist, in the 21st Century, is only interested in the colour of the maple cap, when he is spending $25k or $30k on a working tool, which has zero collectable value, and fetches the money  only on the basis of its value as an instrument.....that seems ludicrous to me.

p90fool

Well, either way, when an early P90 goldtop is converted and routed into a "burst", there is now one less early 1950s P90 goldtop in the world and precisely the same number of late '50s sunburst Standards as there was before. 

peteri

I've been watching this thread with a lot of interest, some good points here - to wade into the whole conversion topic.

(Detail of my background, my Les Paul journey over the last 5 years has been: 1972 Les Paul Custom, Yuuki Conversion, 1954 Goldtop (original), Terry Morgan replica, 1957 Goldtop (original), R9, R7 historic makeovers. I've played, and compared my guitars to 4 utterly genuine 59 bursts and two more 57 Goldtops)

I think there are a lot of generalisations in the conversions topic, and unfortunately not all conversions are anything like the same thing - here's my take on the timeline of conversions:

1. 1970s people really start coverting bursts (ok maybe happening a bit in the 60s too) and they began to realise that 1957/8 Goldtop were basically the same guitar so people began stripping the tops, sometimes (often) they found a lovely flame and a burst was born! These will really play as well and sound the same as a burst, why wouldn't they?
2. However, not all Goldtops have a maple cap - some are all mahogany, I've played one of these and they are distinctly different, when compared side by side, equally some when stripped will have a multi-piece top, or no flame. So at this point we started to see re-tops, where a new maple top was put on top. Also plainer 58s were sometimes re-topped to get more flame. At this point you're deviating from the original guitar, and things start being a bit different  guitar wise.
3. The supply of 57s starts to dwindle, remember we're not talking vast numbers here. So people move back to the 56, same guitar but with p90s, quick bit of routing, couple of pickups from a 335/345/SG etc. and you're good to go. These will often sound as good as an average burst, but there are very few that look as good over time.
4. The supply of 56s starts to drop (see where we're going), so more candidates are sought - the 55 is no good, the top carve is way wrong and lots of other details changed for 55. Some convertors take a 55 and re-top, more jump to the still cheap 54.
5. The 54 is to some (including me) the best p90 Les Paul, the top carve is right, the neck carve is right - but to convert you need to route and change the bridge, so again harder to do and maybe you re-top etc.

All this was happening up until maybe 5-10 years ago.

At this point we're talking about guitars which are (to varying degrees) exactly as the factory made them structurally, with different pickups and paint.

But the demand doesn't go away, and people want to target a bigger market so the cheaper 52/53 Les Pauls start getting used, but with that comes a whole world of hurt in neck angles etc. some people will reset, others start with 'hacks' such as shaving bridges down etc. to make the whole thing appear to work.

Again, you have an issue that there are not an infinite number of donor guitars, PAF pickups have got more expensive (so all of a sudden you get that great myth of 'PAF spec PAT number pickup' which crops up so much now, ok I know initially the sticker was the only change, but there's a big difference between a 57-9 long magnet PAF and a 66 PAT) etc. And all of a sudden the donor guitars aren't basically solid guitars with a pickup change, maybe a re-top, bit of paint etc. instead, they're smashed, trashed home projects, often with dubious history etc. these are not the same as the conversions at the top of the page I've talked about.

Also, just look at the parts prices now and see how that stacks up with the claims made for recent conversions you see for sale - a decent PAF is at least £2.5k etc. the parts needed to make a 'proper' conversion would add up to at least £15,000 assuming you use repro pickup rings, and not including the price of the guitar, or the time of the person doing the conversion. And that's assuming you've got the patience to track all the bits down.

A decent Goldtop with no breaks is pushing £25,000 - maybe more now, so you're looking at £40-50k is the realistic price of a decent quality effort.

Now take a look at the prices being charged, including by those people praised already in this thread and see if those numbers tally, the answer is they just don't.

And therefore you start getting corners cut, maybe parts aren't quite as described etc.

And finally, what matters most to me - how do they sound?

When I got my conversion, I loved it - it was my gateway drug if you like, it sounded better, looked better than any Les Paul I had (better than the 72 Custom unless you wanted all out rock, better than the Les Paul Studios I'd owned before) and it looked cool.

Then I got to play it alongside some real 50s Gibsons. 

The 54 Goldtop I had destroyed it, just more character and power, a no expense spared 'old-school' conversion of a late 56 with the right PAFs equally smashed it. And the bursts, just forget it - really a different instrument.

Both the R9 (brazilian board) and R7 (likewise) are also significantly, significantly  better guitars than the conversion, for way less money. The R7 I'm keeping, it's 95-98% my original Goldtop - for a fraction of the price. And way better than the conversion.

And the Terry Morgan? Mine was a twin of the Greeny copy which has just sold, 95% of a real burst (and I compared them side by side) and waaaaaay better than the conversion.

The conversions you see so often on Instagram are, in my mind, in their natural habitat - they look the part, they take good photos, but they are just not comparable to the real thing - and I'm afraid most people would be better with a good R9 for half the price, you'll know what you're getting - and you know how they'll age.

I genuinely wonder how these conversions will look in ten years, when you've got nitro sinking into the grain, plugs and little bits of wood showing through more, maybe it's been dropped and the repaired headstock shatters etc. 

And don't for one minute think you're getting anything that resembles (beyond look) a 'Golden Era' Gibson, I'm sorry you're not - it doesn't necessarily mean you've bought a bad guitar, not at all - but they're not the real thing, there's too much work, damage and trauma inflicted to make that the case. By the time you've stuck the headstock back together, routed for different pickups, maybe changed the board, definitely shaved the board down to make it flat again, ground down the bridge, stuck some PAF stickers from eBay on the pickups etc. the guitar is so far away from what left the factory, or from what conversions originally were - that you should really change the name on the headstock

Just my opinion, but I like to think it's based on logic.

Onto the topic of great guitarists playing conversions, that doesn't change any of the above - there are many reasons for this, some just don't know, some just don't care, many will view these instruments as tools and if they work for them, some do it because they get close to being there and they appreciate the money from selling their original, some want to use the conversion for playing out - simply because it takes a brave person to travel with a £300k guitar!

My best, never to be sold Telecaster is made from a pile of bits I've bought over the years, if I was to describe it on Reverb I'd get slated, but it works for me.

In terms of this 58 - it's blatantly fake in my mind, tenon and front pickup rout way wrong, top carve wrong, cavities wrong.

Best bet is, either a 53 or 55 conversion - but I wouldn't be surprised if it's never been near a Gibson factory, and I think the chap currently selling it has been duped - likely for quite a bit of money.

HarrySeven

@peteri - some great points there.

I don't think I have anything whatsoever to add to the whole Conversion thing (or indeed 'Burst' mythology/lust), primarily because I'm pretty much disinterested in them and the mystique surrounding them. Apologies - no disrespect intended or implied towards those immersed in that culture, though...it's just not my bag.

However, what is concerning with any modern guitar fakery is that you don't have to be a genius to do some research (thanks to Instagram, Facebook, various UK/US forums, etc) and start drawing some interesting Venn diagrams in which various names/businesses begin to consistently overlap.

I know that in the grand scheme of things (particularly in the current global climate), there are much bigger fish to fry and fret about, but it's always saddening to hear of deliberate duplicity.

PhilKing

I have a 52 conversion, and it is a great guitar.  It was probably converted sometime in the 60's or 70's and whoever did it was an incredible woodworker.  There has been no attempt to hide what it is, the end holes for the tailpiece are plugged and show.  The top is a 3 piece top, with no symmetry in the pieces.  The way the tailpiece and bridge were added was to cut a piece out of the top and inlay a block of maple with similar grain and the workmanship on it is superb.  Unless you know it's there, it is really hard to see and the seams are incredibly tight.  The neck wasn't reset, so the angle is a little flatter than a later 50's, but that's fine for me.

The sunburst has been sprayed like a Fender (follows the outline), rather than the Gibson teardrop shape, but the lacquer has faded and cracked over the years.  I bought it in 1995 from a friend who bought it from We Buy Guitars a couple of years before.   He wanted a guitar to look right and ended up buying a Gibson reissue and sold it to me for $2,500 (with original Lifton case).  The guitar is on the cover of Atlantic Blues Guitar (from 1986):

This is it, showing the inlaid block (look how the seam moves sideways from the tailpiece, past the bridge (the block ends at the pickup route).


It's the closest I'm going to get to an original burst and I love playing the guitar.  It is incredibly light and resonant and Tim Mills made me a set of unpotted pickups for it (a Black Dog bridge and Riff Raff neck), to get the sound I like (Paul Kossoff, Peter Green).  

I would never try to pass this off as a real burst, however it is a 50's Les Paul and has mojo and everyone who's tried it likes it (unless they are just being polite!).  I guess my point is that I don't mind conversion guitars, especially with the old 52/53 wrap bridge, as long as no one is trying to make them into something that they are not.

rlw

Absolutely nothing to add to this thread and I bow to the level of knowledge and wisdon being shown here.

But I keep asking myself why would anyone even contemplate, let alone pay, that sum of money for something as shite and manky looking as this guitar.

fretboarder

Def fake plus the guy trying to pass it as real is a bell end and so is his stupid old mate hahhahah