Anyway, I have seen loads of fakes available on websites such as Trade Tang and heard good things about them from some people who have ordered them from there (mostly on fuckoffsetguitars). Trouble was that those sites are strictly export - cannot get shipping within China. Balls I thought. But I messaged one of the sellers anyway and luckily enough he mailed me and said we could do a deal directly. Even better, he lived about 20 mins down the road from me.
So a couple of days of emails and this evening he drove over to deliver my guitar. Brought a little practice amp with him for me to try out as we did the dodgy deal out of the back of his car
I have to say that I am more than impressed. I had pretty low expectations, but as long as it worked I was happy to just have a guitar. Turns out that it's faultless. The fit an finish are superb, seriously cannot find fault with it at all, from the binding, inlays, fretwork, tuners, finish, all as good as anything I have seen. In fact better than quite a few genuine Gibsons I have played, but we all know the great QC that they have.
I've only played it through iRig as I'm yet to get a proper amp over here, but it sounds great. Until I plug in properly I won't be able to tell how good the electronics/pickups are, but no complaints so far. In fact they actually have reverse log pots, something neither Gibson or Fender do on their lefty models (have actually only seen it on my also Chinese made Squier CV Tele).
I've always wanted a Custom but the price vs quality has always put me off a genuine Gibson. In this case I honestly don't think I could tell the difference between the two if you were to line them up in front of me.
And the best part of all this...tweed hard case, strap, spare set of D'Addario strings, allen key, and guitar all for approximately £190. Fucking score.
A couple of shitty night-time camera photos followed by the seller's pics:
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