I was visiting my friends guitar shop last Friday. He's a luthier and owns a small shop and also sells/buys used instruments & amps.
Anyway.......A customer comes in and has a Les Paul Deluxe that he had just purchased from a local pawn shop and he wanted it checked out and set-up.
The pawn shop had the guitar listed as a 2004 and the customer bought it for $850 USD. That's still a crazy low price for a Les Paul Deluxe, but here's the great part of the story.
The guitar actually turned out to be a '79 Les Paul Deluxe!
The pawn shop looked at the serial number and mis-read it as a 2004 using modern Gibson serial number dating.
Anyway.......A customer comes in and has a Les Paul Deluxe that he had just purchased from a local pawn shop and he wanted it checked out and set-up.
The pawn shop had the guitar listed as a 2004 and the customer bought it for $850 USD. That's still a crazy low price for a Les Paul Deluxe, but here's the great part of the story.
The guitar actually turned out to be a '79 Les Paul Deluxe!
The pawn shop looked at the serial number and mis-read it as a 2004 using modern Gibson serial number dating.