Expert: Bill Ruxton - 11/30/2005

Question
Hi, I have a guitar I've had for a while supposedly a Les Paul....I bought it from a lady in the early 80's she said she bought the guitar brand new and custom made in 1979. It has no gibson logo on it but a gold sticker on the back of the headstock that reads WO. 20977....the headstock is also not typical of the gibson headstock instead of the split double points at the top it just comes to one point....and it also had some mother of pearl butterfly inlay (the lady said she had it custom done that way but?) i also bough from this lady some Gibson amps which are authentic but just this guitar i dont know....if you could please tell me what you think or tell me what other information i can give you about it i could send digital photos if you would like to see for yourself. I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

Answer
Dear Roxy,

The short answer is, no, your guitar is definitely not a Gibson.  It pretty certainly is one of many thousands of inexpensive Asian-made guitars designed to look like a Gibson Les Paul.  I doubt that the inlays you describe are custom work.  Guitar makers in Asia often make instruments to be sold under some importer or distributor's brand name, and sometimes the names aren't added to the headstock until later.

Many of these kinds of instruments were made by groups of companies, with one building the necks, and others making the bodies, or doing the final assembly, thus, their exact origins are difficult to determine.  There is no documentation available on serial numbers for these kinds of instruments.

If it plays well and sounds good, don't worry about its pedigree.  It doesn't have to be valuable to be cool.

Hope this helps.  Have fun with it!

Bill