Alright this is for the super sleuths. I have never owned a gibson.My friend that owns the guitar store I have been going to for years and does all my ax work asked me to see while surfing ebay if I came across a Frampton Les Paul. Now not only is he an amazing tech and ace player but he is a friend so I invested a couple of hours late at night and Bingo. I find one that did not reach the reserve it died at $1.499 in mint condition with the seller saying in these tough economic times he is asking a fair price and he had over 300 sales and a perfect rating. I was in the shop today and told him and when he checked it out he said it was a fake.He said it was chinese and everything was wrong. That a Frampton does not come with gold pup covers and that the fretboard was rosewood instead of ebony. The case was wrong for the guitar. I swear if they can make them this good there is going to be a lot of problems as I was fooled but then again I dont know Gibsons that well.So if any of you guys want to give a shot as there are only 3 in the completed listings it is the $1.499 one.

Hi Straycat: only Frampton Sig I can find on Ebay at the moment is this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Frampton-Signature- ... 286.c0.m14

Hard to tell from the pix, but that could be an ebony 'board?

I guess it's not the sale you're talking about - got a link to that one so's we can see?

BTW: I often find watching out for stuff on Ebay boring. I like you're friend's style, getting someone else to do that for him. But I wonder why he doesn't just set up a saved search on Ebay?

Cheers - C

EDIT: though I can find genuine Frampton models all over the internet I don't seem to be able to dig one up on Gibson's own websites so far, for "official" specs and comparison...

Hello Straycat113,

The $1499 item on ebay is a fake.
A true les paul has frets that do not extend over the binding
and a tiny nib is present on the binding.
A painstaking process that Gibson uses.
On the fake, frets extend over the binding.

Plenty of China fakes out there---always use caution.

Cheers.

Thanks Mr Bill thats what my friend Mike said the minute he saw it. Ceri if you just picked up three guitars from ebay and your friend does a total setup and changes the strings on all three and says give me $30 I think that while I am cruising ebay I can take sometime out and look for him .Besides I was the one who asked if he was looking for anything in particular and offered thats what friend do.lol Yes my friend owns over 40 axes so there is not much he looks for but he knew it was a fake right off the bat he pointed out what Mr Bill said also. Not hard for a guy born into a music store that has been around NY for 80 years now.

Hi again, Straycat: only a friendly joke, I hope that was clear. If it wasn't - well, it is now.

Mind you, if you felt like keeping an eye open for a Sonic Blue "Beatles" Strat for me, that would be handy... (JK)

Seriously though, Mr Bill has obviously found this Frampton Les Paul you're talking about - but I can't see it. Ebay won't let me search for a finished sale, isn't that right?

Can you give us a link to the page so we can all have a look, please? I'd be keen to help, or at any rate learn more.

Cheers - C

Here's a link to a real one:
http://www.gbase.com/gear/gibson-custom ... es-paul-c#

Its about $2,400 than the price of the one you mention on eBay...

I believe this is the listing the OP is referring to:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Gibson-Peter-Frampt ... 286.c0.m14

The one on eBay is a fake. The PU covers are not right, the binding is only on the top side, wrong color knobs, there's a pickguard...

Counterfeit Gibsons on the internet are not new...on another forum I frequent, it seems like every week there is a new online retailer or eBayer trying to unload counterfeit Gibsons...

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

Hi bowlfreshener: excellent, thank you for that.

Well then a mere glance shows that the Ebay one is not a Frampton Sig. Plenty of stuff wrong in addition to the pickup covers and rings.

On the other hand, if someone showed it to me as just a regular Les Paul of that type, then from the photos I couldn't say otherwise. (Though I know almost zero about Gibson cases.)

We know for sure it's Chinese, do we? Frightening, if so...

Watch out!

Cheers - C

I always thought gibson frets went well into the binding, atleast halfway. the ends are painted the same as the binding so you can tell when the guitar has been refretted.

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No no and no

No problem...I was just surprised at how I could tell it was a fake, as I am not very Gibson literate

One thing about eBay that I think many people fall into is something I call "eBay blinders"...people either forget to see if the item is available somewhere other than eBay, or forget to even double check if the item is legit until its too late. Then the other thing is the people who must win everything, no matter the cost. I see both these things as the cause as to why you will oftentimes see items go for more money on eBay than what it actually costs from a store or other non-auction, online retailer...

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

The fretboard wood is a little troubling, but the obvious Chinese "artifacts" either aren't shown or they've improved (i.e., the usual 3 screw truss rod cover is the typical giveaway --- this one looks like 2 screw). They don't a good shot of the front or back of the headstock. Here are a couple "honest to goodness" Chinese fake Les Pauls:

http://www.wilburncustomshop.com/special.html

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Ceri I am sorry to not of put up a link but to tell the truth I do not know how .Thanks Bowlfreshner. I am not computer savy at all .In fact it was only 2 months ago that Doc told me I was shouting everything by using capitols, it just made it easier to read to me but now I am aware of that. I have to say those guitars would fool me because of my lack of gibson knowledge. The only thing I could think of was maybe the seller did not know it was a fake as he had over 300 transactions and a 100% feedback rating which takes some time to build up and why risk blowing it all up. Usually the guys with 10 sales would be more inclined to have that on there mind. The other good thing is someone would be protected by PAYPAL for Item not as described and would get a refund. To tell the truth I am going to give him a lil NY bluntness and tell him he is selling a fake lets see what he has to say.
,

Hi again guys: interested in this thread because it's a steep learning curve for me.

And I'm struck by what Orville says about the apparent absence of Chinese fake tell-tales, because he assuredly knows vastly more about that stuff than me. If that's not a real Gibson I for one could easily be taken in by it.

Also, Straycat pointing out that the seller has a 100 percent record on 300 sales, so why would he knowingly sell a fake?

So just to suggest a possibility: maybe he doesn't really know so much about guitars and simply labelled it a Frampton Sig because it's black and has three pickups. Naive, but not necessarily a deliberate attempt to deceive...?

Where I live Fiesta Red Strats have an enduring popularity because local hero Hank Marvin famously played one in the '60s. It sometimes seems like half the red Strats for sale on Ebay in my country say "Hank Marvin" in the title, even though they're not Signature models, and often the red isn't even Fiesta. Usually, people are not really lying: they just put it there out of enthusiasm, as to say; "this looks a bit like the guitar Mr X played".

We sometimes need to remember, the world's full of folks - including good guitarists - who just aren't as picky about this stuff as some of us here. There was a recent thread in the Strat Forum concerning a Highway One Strat that had been labelled "American Standard". Words like "fraud" and "scam" were flying around - but I wondered whether the seller simply didn't know so much about Strats, saw "Made in USA" on the headstock and kinda figured it was a fairly "standard" looking Strat - no unusual features to his eye. So he called it an American standard, without intent to deceive.

Maybe, maybe not.

Regarding this non-Frampton: someone with more energy than me might look back through the seller's previous transactions and see if he appears super-expert, within which case mis-labelling the instrument is less excusable.

Or maybe he's just a guy who made an innocent mistake.

Over to the "case crackers" in the thread title!

Cheers - C

Okay...maybe I shouldn't have said it was definitely counterfeit, as I don't know that for sure. It may in fact be a Gibson, but its definitely not the Gibson the seller claims it to be. The sellers feedback unfortunately doesn't go back too far thanks to eBay not showing the items sold after 90 days, so most of his recent activity that can be searched shows mainly songbooks and accessories, but does feature a Fender acoustic:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0314402481

If that listing is accurate, I guess there is a chance that a mistake was made, however, in this day and age of just being able to google stuff, like I did when I first read this post, and found what a legit Frampton LP looks like, I just don't understand why the seller did not take a few seconds, or minutes, if he's on dialup, to verify what they had was what they said it was? Feedback is helpful, but 100% feedback has no indication that he is a Gibson expert...I would not be shocked if thieves and crooks may oftentimes sell a bunch of smaller value items in order to get their feedback up before trying to sell an larger valued item, in order to make them seem more legit, and then if caught either deny it through their feedback, or just say they made a mistake, and try to find another victim....

While there are deals to be had on the internet, personally for me, once you cross a certain price range, for me, over $500, either I need to be able to fully inspect it in person or you have to be someone I know and trust, or its just not happening...

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That's the way I am leaning right now. I can't be certain without more and better pictures, but it looks more Gibson than Chinese to me. And it is in the "Frampton style."

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Hello All,

First let me say that counterfit guitars of asian origin
are not very well made instruments, and while they do
mimic Gibson, Fender, Gretch, PRS, Epiphone even Ibanez
in appearance, they completely lack in performance, durability.
and desireability.

A common scenario is John/jane1 buys the fake knowing its a fake
and then sells to john/jane2 who knows it's a piece of dung but is out
for a buck. John/Jane 3 gets it for a real deal fall out of love with it
and the cycle continues, some know some don't.

On the up side fakes are becomming less available in the last
year possible due to pressure from authentic manufacturers.

Cheers.