I wanted two keeper guitars a Fender and Gibson.

It didn’t take me long to find a great modern Custom Shop Telecaster. Amazing woods, great finishing and pickups to die for. I never actually found a modern Gibson that warranted the price tag. Their new nitro formulars seem pretty dam close to poly with all the plastisisers they put in them. Not totally Gibson’s fault, but you’d think they could source more authentic nitro for their reissues.

In the end I just plumped for a 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior. That guitar is out of the world, but you can’t run a company on a reputation you built 50 years ago with a couple of thousand godly guitars. What they build now is totally put to shame by what they used to produce. I wouldn’t suggest anyone buy and expensive Custom Shop Gibson when you can still get 1950s Juniors and Specials for the same price.

There are much better quality brand Les Paul style guitars being crafted today. Many guitar luthiers at some time or another have found Japan crafted guitars to be far superior in quality than the Gibson USA made guitars. For example the Fujigen Gakki guitar factory in Japan uses very high grade “old growth” Mahogany & Maple in the production of their guitars that is naturally seasoned & dried for a period of 5 years or longer. The older growth wood such as old-stock African mahogany or hard Maple produces a lighter weight finished product that is far more musically resonant than “speed dried” wood. Gibson uses cheaper new wood kiln cured in a matter of hours, that is why a Solid body Gibson weighs around 10Lbs compared to a Solid Body Japan Les Paul that may only weigh between 8.5Lbs to 9 Lbs, and also sounds tonally dead. Also Gibson has very poor fit tolerances when assembling the neck of the guitar in the body, and most Gibson Les Paul guitars under $5,000 have a poorly fitted “short Neck tenon”. Remove the neck humbucker of a Gibson Les Paul, and you will find no visible “tenon” in the neck cavity. The poorly fitted neck to body fit of the Gibson greatly reduces tonal resonance & diminishes sustain! (This is NOT how Gibson made Les Paul guitars in the 1950’s!! The Japan crafted Les Paul style guitars are most all made with a “LONG neck tenon” that is clearly visible in the neck cavity of the body. Also, the Japanese carefully fit the neck to the body of the guitar using the tightest tolerances possible producing far superior tonal resonance & sustain all for about $700-$1200. Fuji Gen Gakki in Japan currently crafts Les Paul guitars under the Brand Name “History” & “FGN” or “Fujigen. There are many used “lawsuit” or vintage Japan Brand name Les Paul guitars far superior than anything Gibson has made in the last 40 years. You can find some super high-quality vintage Japanese brand Les Paul style guitars on Ebay such as Greco, Orville, Yamaha, Burny, and even some Epiphone Les Paul guitar that were “Made in Japan” all for a fraction of the price of a junk Gibson. This is why Gibson continues to file lawsuits against Paul Reed Smith, and the many others, because Gibson can’t handle their competition making a FAR Superior guitar for a much more reasonable price tag! P.S if you find an Epiphone Les Paul with a “open-book” shaped headstock, it was likely made in Japan using the same quality as described above. The Epiphone Les Pauls with the Open-book shaped headstock were all crafted in Japan by Fujigen Gakkii, however these are very rare as most Epiphones are made in Korea.

Beware the Chinese & Korean manufactured guitars don’t come close those made in Japan. However, even the Chinese & Korean made guitars are beginning to surpass Gibson in quality, and give more bang for the buck. Although the Chinese & Korean guitars are not the greatest yet, the quality control & craftsmanship is becoming very advanced, and in some cases you may find your $500 Korean Epiphone playing better than a $3,500 Gibson Les Paul Custom!
Yes Gibons Sucks in a very bad way!

I wanna see this website when it’s done, pal.

I’m a repairman based in Ohio, USA. Nice article. I particularly liked the part about Gibson being like an eccentric elderly relative, and it’s so true. The company has been doing some strange things and building even stranger guitars. Have you seen the reverse Explorer? My God what were they thinking?

It sucks that small shops like us can’t even buy O.E.M. replacement parts directly. I guess that’s part of their scheme to drop all of the independent music store dealers and sell exclusively through mega music stores like Guitar Center (which Gibson owns btw). Fortunately, quality aftermarket parts are easily obtainable and in most cases cheaper than O.E.M. parts. In fact, Gibson themselves are now using Gotoh tune-o-matic bridges and stop bars. I find that very telling.

I have a reputation for doing exceptional fret work, and I do quite a few Gibsons and Epiphones. Honestly, the higher end Epi Les Pauls are not that far off from a Gibson. The figured maple tops are not as nice for the most part, and the low to mid-priced Epi’s have the crappiest Made in Korea hardware and pickups. After a good fret job and complete setup, even the cheap Epi’s can play as well as any Gibson.

What really irks me about Gibson besides their quality issues, is their pricing and the artificially rare limited editions they keep pumping out, along with the ridiculously inflated prices of the Signature series guitars. The Mike Bloomfield model was just released at $14,115 USD. It just kills me to see someone fork over that kind of money for a guitar that looks pretty much like every other Les Paul ever made.

Here’s a link to an article I wrote about the difference between Gibson and Epiphone Les Pauls: http://srm-enterprises.net/gibiphone.htm

I’m actually launching a new site soon to make people aware of design and quality issues with Gibson guitars, as well as some of their dubious marketing and pricing strategies. I plan on having an active forum where other players and luthiers can discuss these issues, post photos, and hopefully, Gibson will pay attention. If not, at least I can get the facts out there so people can make an informed decision before handing over their hard earned money.

Drop me an email if you’d be interested in contributing, and I’ll fill you in on some details I can’t divulge publicly just yet.

John Sheehan