Don't Expect Your Chibson for Christmas!

[andrewsrea]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/crime/general ... r-AA1uO9li

[tlarson58]

"Heidt said seasoned guitar players would be able to easily tell the difference between the fake Gibsons that were seized and the brand's authentic instruments, from the sound to other elements visible to the trained eye.

"We can pick it up immediately and tell," she said, describing flaws in the fakes such as in the finishing, a more "flimsy" and light feel, placement of the logo, misplaced inlays and flaws in where the neck of the guitar meets the rest of the body."

The article says that they were destined for the e-commerce market. I assume that means infiltrating Reverb.

Who makes the money? Did a buyer pay the Chinese manufacturer in full, assume the shipping cost with plans to sell them on the market? That makes the most sense to me.

png-clipart-plucked-string-instruments-string-instrument-accessory-yellow-slide-guitar-garage-band-homer-homer-simpson-musician-cartoon.png (17.64 KiB) Viewed 1116 times

[Tonray's Ghost]

What ! This means I have to settle for a 25% tarriffed MIM Fender Player ?

[tobijohn]

What ! This means I have to settle for a 25% tarriffed MIM Fender Player ?

Or a 25% tariffed Godin from Canada....

[andrewsrea]

Who makes the money? Did a buyer pay the Chinese manufacturer in full, assume the shipping cost with plans to sell them on the market? That makes the most sense to me.

Excluding the concept of when the transfer of ownership occurs, that is probably the deal. Probably a Rondo-type seller on that Chinese eBay clone (I cannot remember the name, but it has become popular since the pandemic - not Alibabba). I assume they frequently shift identities and accounts.

To the question of who loses the money here, that would be better answered by folks here on AGF who bought direct from the imported company. IMHO, the import manufacturer pretends to ensure delivery and passage through Customs. In practice, all the risk falls on the buyer. And I am not an expert, but purchasing contraband will probably be a criminal charged levied on the buyer. And as such, buying a single Chibson from Alibabba would probably result in a slap on the wrist and a small fine. 7000 instruments would be a felony and include prison time.

Can you imagine having to explain this as the buyer, to your family?

[uwmcscott]

What ! This means I have to settle for a 25% tarriffed MIM Fender Player ?

Or a 25% tariffed Godin from Canada....

I seem to remember Gibson's being at least 40% better.

[tonebender]

I picked up a couple of nice Chibsons in the last couple of years and I got both off Fleabay from a seller in California. Both are fine instruments but clearly any experienced Gibson player as myself would know immediately it is not the real thing. I am also certain that either one could fool the novice as well. I thought one of them was a 335 copy but it turned out to be a 339 copy. I should have paid more attention to the perspective in the pic of neck to horns. The ad only called it a semi-hollow. The other is an LP Junior P90 copy and it is a color Gibson did not produce with that model so it is obvious to a Gibson fan that it is a fake. Both are poly which is dead giveaway but the saddle posts now are small and not like the Epi so that immediate tell has been fixed. I am not a fan of the 339 style and prefer a 335, so a friend is buying that one from me. The Junior I play and gig with off and on. It is a pretty amazing guitar, I even like it better or least as well as my real Junior. I have a Chibson Les Paul Standard Goldtop (Mustard) that I did order from China back in the day. It pretty much was an Epi with Gibson logo. The pups actually were stamped Epi on the back. I out Gibson tuners on it, Gibson wiring and Seymour Duncan Seth Lover signed PAFs in it. The bridge posts are still Import size and the color (mustard) are two tells to a Gibson fan. I have to admit though it plays and sounds as good as any Les Paul with hums I have ever played. Chibsons always piqued my curiosity but if they went away it would not hurt my feelings. I have always thought Gibson did not really care that much. They are all over foreign countries because they have a hard time getting the real thing.

[tobijohn]

Excluding the concept of when the transfer of ownership occurs, that is probably the deal. Probably a Rondo-type seller on that Chinese eBay clone (I cannot remember the name, but it has become popular since the pandemic - not Alibabba). I assume they frequently shift identities and accounts.

To the question of who loses the money here, that would be better answered by folks here on AGF who bought direct from the imported company. IMHO, the import manufacturer pretends to ensure delivery and passage through Customs. In practice, all the risk falls on the buyer. And I am not an expert, but purchasing contraband will probably be a criminal charged levied on the buyer. And as such, buying a single Chibson from Alibabba would probably result in a slap on the wrist and a small fine. 7000 instruments would be a felony and include prison time.

Can you imagine having to explain this as the buyer, to your family?

3000+ Chibsons is a lot of guitars which don't get cranked out in a seven-day week (about 430 a day), or even a thirty-day month (about 100 a day), and to give some perspective, Gibson's Nashville facility produces around 500 guitars a day. An amount like that would have to come out of one of the big Asian factories, a smaller factory wouldn't have the financial resources to build and hold that many guitars prior to shipment even if they were paid a hefty amount in advance.

Whether the manufacturer or the seller in the US took the brunt of the loss would be determined by the terms of their agreement (x% down, the balance in 30/60/90 days or something like that). Kurt would probably be able to tell us how that most likely works. The fact that he takes pre-orders says he has to put up some cash before his source starts building anything.

Anyway, this was a big operation, to produce, ship and then warehouse that many guitars. Also, I'm not sure how they came up with the $18,000,000 valuation, that dollar amount divided by 3000 comes to $600 per guitar. Perhaps that was the valuation on the shipment manifest, and a way of limiting the tariff amount paid by the stateside buyer..

[andrewsrea]

I seem to remember Gibson's being at least 40% better.

Kudos for reviving a classic! I remember that before it was a pun, it was a serious AGF debate where some folks got their feelings a little hurt.

[andrewsrea]

3000+ Chibsons is a lot of guitars which don't get cranked out in a seven-day week (about 430 a day), or even a thirty-day month (about 100 a day), and to give some perspective, Gibson's Nashville facility produces around 500 guitars a day. An amount like that would have to come out of one of the big Asian factories, a smaller factory wouldn't have the financial resources to build and hold that many guitars even if they were paid a hefty amount in advance.

Whether the manufacturer or the seller in the US took the brunt of the loss would be determined by the terms of their agreement (x% down, the balance in 30/60/90 days or something like that). Kurt would probably be able to tell us how that most likely works. The fact that he takes pre-orders says he has to put up some cash before his source starts building anything.

Anyway, this was a big operation, to produce, ship and then warehouse that many guitars. Also, I'm not sure how they came up with the $18,000,000 valuation, that dollar amount divided by 3000 comes to $600 per guitar. Perhaps that was the valuation on the shipment manifest, and a way of limiting the tariff amount paid by the stateside buyer..

I toured Memphis Gibson before they shut it down and that factory was doing an astounding 250 guitars per day. That blew my mind, as most were hollow and semi-hollow which are the more difficult to manufacture. Fender claims 1000 made per workday, so if you do the math of average workdays in a year, that is 300K guitars just for those two companies. Basic estimation using the assumption that they account for 60% of all produced, suggests that around 50K new guitars are produced every year worldwide. Given that very minute percentage of guitars made ever get into a totally unplayable condition, there are a shit-ton of guitars in the world!

As far as the $18M, I would suspect that is not street value of said instruments but is Gibson estimating their sales lost if they missed a sale due to the Chibson substitution. And that would be $6K per guitar, not $600. The latter might be spot on for the street value of the Chibsons.