A PRS CST 24 Black Cherry solid body electric guitar was stolen from a retailer in Chicago’s West suburbs.

Serial Number: 132088

Villa Park, IL Police Report number: 10-23137

Villa Park Police Department
630-834-7447

Keep an eye out.

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This equipment has been reported stolen. If you see these items, think of your safety first. We advise you not to purchase the item from anyone claiming to be the owner. If you feel safe with pursuing it further, contact your local law enforcement, referencing the above case number.

This guitar has

been recovered.

A Paul Reed Smith 2002 Dragon Black Cherry was stolen from a store in Hollywood, CA on Sunday, the 14th of February. The Serial number of the guitar was XXXXXXX.

If this is located, please contact the Hollywood, CA police department.

Keep an eye out.

Please follow us at twitter.com/gearsecure, myspace.com/gearsecure or facebook for updates.

This equipment has been reported stolen. If you see these items, think of your safety first. We advise you not to purchase the item from anyone claiming to be the owner. If you feel safe with pursuing it further, contact your local law enforcement, referencing the above case number.

Paul Reed Smith McCarty Korina Black Sunburst.
Serial Number: 135598
Stolen without case.

Arlington Heights Police Department case number 10-02677

Keep an eye out.

Please follow us at twitter.com/gearsecure, myspace.com/gearsecure or facebook for updates.

This equipment has been reported stolen. If you see these items, think of your safety first. We advise you not to purchase the item from anyone claiming to be the owner. If you feel safe with pursuing it further, contact your local law enforcement, referencing the above case number.

As of 09-30-09 Webster Police had the case listed as Inactive.

One guitar was recovered, but the rest are still at large.

PRS CST22      Tortoise Shell      Serial Number 131080
PRS CST24     Whale Blue    Serial Number 130381
PRS CST24    Vintage Nat.    Serial Number 131***    *RECOVERED*
Gibson Les Paul Classic  Gold Bullion     Serial Number 073767

Police Report 08-01774

Contact Webster TX Police Department (281) 332-2426

Please follow us at twitter.com/gearsecure, myspace.com/gearsecure or facebook for updates.

This equipment has been reported stolen. If you see these items, think of your safety first. We advise you not to purchase the item from anyone claiming to be the owner. If you feel safe with pursuing it further, contact your local law enforcement, referencing the above case number.

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I’m not going to tell you the domain. We don’t want to give these guys any advertising or traffic. Rest assured we’ll be contacting our contacts at the manufacturers in question to make sure they are aware of the site.

No surprise the site in question originates in China. Undoubtedly some of these instruments are in the wild around the world, including the U.S. When you read the site, you can tell that the copy is written by somebody who isn’t a native English speaker, though the grammar isn’t horrible. There’s hardly any Engrish to make fun of, though the copy is far from brilliant or professional.

The site says any of their guitars can be ordered custom, and they show a unique 3+3 headstock with an eagle logo as the “standard” headstock that the guitars come with. This helps to distinguish their guitars from the manufacturers they are counterfeiting, or at least provide plausible deniability. Since most of the photos on the site cut off just below the headstock, I’m guessing they don’t really do this. Instead they probably send you a counterfeit, claim it’s an error, and stick you with it. But you’ll see more of their headstocks in a minute.

One of my favorite lines from the site is to call their instruments “Chinese Replica Guitars”. These are no more “replica guitars” as a counterfeit $20 bill is a “home inkjet replica bill”.

A further example of this deception is evident on their Ibanez page, I’m sorry, “Ibanez style guitars” page.  Look at these images:

Obviously, these are so close to Ibanez’s style that they have replicated the shipping boxes and hang tags.

Here’s another good one: notice these guitars have the Gibson “made in USA” sticker over the pickups.

The Fender copies likewise have a sticker like the Fender Americans do. They’ve done their homework and made things as exact as possible.

Most of the guitars on this site go for $400-550. I point this out as I roll out the biggest joke on this particular site. This time I’ll give you a screen grab, because you won’t believe me otherwise:

Yes, not only have the counterfeited a Squier, but they are selling it for $150 above what they are selling for in Guitar Shops. How you like that?

Since I don’t have the actual counterfeit guitars here, I’m going to make this more of a primer on how to be skeptical when evaluating a guitar that you may be purchasing. We can’t accurately gauge the colors on this site, and we can’t accurately gauge some other physical characteristics, so we’re going to have to look very closely at the clues we are given, and hopefully you’ll develop an understanding of what to look for.

Here’s a few things I notice from the site, a few specific differences that you can use to accurately identify these counterfeit instruments.

Here’s a good example of their Les Paul counterfeit. Note that this is fairly decent as things go. They managed to have the standard Gibson two piece bridge, knobs look close enough to the proper placement. To me, however, the horn on the cutaway looks a bit more rounded than the real deal, and the curve on the back end of the body looks a little more squat. That could be perspective, it’s hard to say.

In this picture you see the back, and the backplate looks close to the real deal. Often times, this panel is shaped a little differently, and that is a giveaway, or pull that cover off and see how well the routing has been done. Gibson doesn’t release hack jobs like the ones I’ve seen in some counterfeits.

In this picture you can see the heel and neck join. This appears to me a bit wrong. The heel looks shorter than the typical Les Paul. On the genuine article, the heel is approximately (?) shorter than the width of the body.

They also have no problems producing artist signature models. There’s the Ace Frehley, the Joe Perry, The Slash (Notice the Gibson Headstock on this one).

They also have an ES-335 copy and an Explorer copy. They call this one a korina, but I’m sure you can’t get a guitar made of korina for this kind of price.

Here’s a photo of a headstock from a “Custom” Les Paul counterfeit. That headstock isn’t blank. Apparently, they’ve also pirated Photoshop, because there’s a big black blob hiding something….

This is interesting, when I look at this image in a preview in my file manager, I get a different image. Should have used the Flatten Image command:

Let’s look at their Ibanez Jem copy guitar. You’ll notice that it is sitting on top of an Ibanez box. This one is very accurate. Unlike other Jem counterfeits I’ve seen, this has the correct Gold pickup pole pieces and the scalloping in the upper frets. They’ve really paid attention to details on this one.

So let’s look at this side by side.

Look at the close-up on the bridge. It does say Ibanez, but the casting seems highly flawed, not the smooth consistent and high quality lines of the Ibanez.

Take a look at the pyramid inlays in this neck. These are very sloppy, and I’m not sure if you know this, but on the official Ibanez models with the pyramid inlays are simply pieces of paper under transparent inlays. Those Ibanez guys, they’re crafty, unlike these counterfeiters.

Here’s a shot of the headstock. Take a look at the swoosh.

Compare it to this photo of the real product.

You can see the font of the word “Jem” is much thicker in the counterfeit. The swoosh also looks a bit thicker to me on the counterfeit.

Notice on this photo, the Ibanez tuning machines, and the lack of a serial number. Ibanez serial numbers are almost without exception on the back of the headstock.

Paul Reed Smith is not immune to these counterfeiters. Here’s a few instruments to look at.Oh, wait, that’s a Guitar Center Platinum Room display with real PRS guitars to give the bogus ones that follow a bit more credence:

Look at this PRS Single-cut counterfeit. Notice that it has exactly the same body as the Gibson Les Paul Counterfeits. I don’t know, can a counterfeit company sue over counterfeit infringement?

Here’s a shot of their headstock copy. It is inlaid just like some PRS guitars. Notice on the back, the serial number follows an approximately correct format, but isn’t hand-written. The tuning machines also appear to be Grovers, or maybe just Grover counterfeits.

Here’s some Fender counterfeits.
Also notice in these and other pictures, the bottom horn in the cutaway seems smaller and just wrong for a Fender.

Notice the heel of this guitar’s neck. On a real Fender, a sticker sometimes is placed here if it is made in Mexico or China. This one has some writing that may be a serial number. The sticker never looks like this, though. Fender’s current Serial Numbers are, like Ibanez, almost always on the headstock.

Here’s their SRV copy. The differences between this and a real SRV are very noticeable. First, the sunburst appears to be the right colors, but the gradation is very smooth on a real Fender. Second, the letters on this counterfeit’s pickguard are very bold in comparison to the real Fender. Third, the real Fender has gold hardware with a lefty bridge, so that the trem arm hangs from above the bridge.

Unless I mention it, all of these images are of counterfeit instruments. I hope this gives you some reference material in what to look for in distinguishing counterfeit instruments, and that you’ll be better armed when making a purchase to identify a genuine instrument.

Manufacturers need to look after their trademarks. Part of the reason behind this is to protect against a customer getting an inferior instrument thinking it is actually from the real brand. The net result of this situation is that the customer no longer trusts the brand, even though they didn’t even make the item in question.

To be clear, this is a different issue from patent infringement. Patents protect inventions, processes and formulas. Trademark refers to the visual shape of something, a logo, a design. In terms of guitars, the body shape and headstock shape. In terms of pedals, a unique housing (the circuit itself would be  patent issue). To look at other ends of the biz, the shape or color scheme of a mixer, the design of a microphone, or the look of a turntable would be the source of trademark infringement. Again, we’re focused on the aesthetics.

So let’s look at the counterfeit issue first. Think about money. If you were going to counterfeit money (don’t try this at home, really), you’d try to match paper, color, size, and every little detail that you can. One thing out of place, and it soon becomes apparent that this bill isn’t right.

Take a look at our first article on a counterfeit, the ’54 Goldtop Reissue. You’ll start picking out the details quickly. But if you aren’t familiar with a ’54 reissue, or the Les Paul in general, the counterfeit instrument looks fairly good.  The counterfeit’s primary aesthetics match very closely. The shape is pretty close to right, the headstock looks good except for the extra screw in the truss rod cover, the colors are off, but close. The functional details are different, the one-part bridge, the wrong pickups, the wrong control configuration.

But sometimes, the match is pretty good. We had a guitar once in our shop that was sold to us as an older Ibanez Jem, and we’re working up a page on it. We bought it in good faith, and even though we carry the same guitar new, we didn’t compare them. I think we were out of stock. Let’s be fair. Sometimes you get an employee who just doesn’t look very hard. I even once had a salesperson try out and buy our own amp once. They aren’t always that bright.

The thing about this Jem copy, though , is that it was old, the chrome was pitted, it had some knicks, it played good, and had good hardware. Not like this Les Paul counterfeit. None of us noticed it was a counterfeit for months, and by that time, we were out the money and we sold it for whatever we could get for it.

Point is, this one was very close, and it was a good guitar.

Counterfeit instruments often have to be just good enough, and usually sell for about a third or less than the real deal. They often get sold on eBay as the real thing, or on several fly-by-night web sites. There once was a “cheapguitarcenter.com” that had dozens of models of Les Paul, PRS, Fender.  They were shut down pretty quickly, and a few months later, we saw one of their guitars walk into the shop with somebody who thought he had a real Zakk Wylde model (the giveaway on this one is the colors really don’t match and the neck is finished, not raw) Les Paul. Poor guy was so bewildered he left it because he didn’t know what else to do with it.

That can give you some idea of how prevalent and widespread these things are. It is interesting to note that a counterfeit guitar is usually a playable instrument if the manufacturer actually wanted to make a brand and establish a company. They would probably sell on the market at about the price of a Mexican made Fender, which is a solid market niche. Often these come from China or a country that isn’t too interested in protecting international trademarks.

Here is the real important distinction, though. A counterfeit guitar will carry the brand name or logo of the guitar it is copying. In the case of some Paul Reed Smith counterfeits I’ve seen, the PRS logo is in a very different font from anything Paul Reed Smith has ever used. Don’t be fooled.

Buying a counterfeit guitar is always a loss.

Let’s turn to lawsuit guitars.

Lawsuit guitars are a different case. The most prominent recent example is the Paul Reed Smith Single Cut guitars. These debuted to the market to great fanfare for the elegant design and great playability. Gibson felt that the design of these was a little too close to that of the Les Paul, and in pressing the lawsuit, production halted.

Demand for these guitars and the value skyrocketed, as for several years it looked like they weren’t going to be made anymore, and the few that were on the market were going to be the rarest of the rare. Eventually, and I’m not sure why, the suit was dropped. These suits are quite complicated and political, so I won’t speculate. Paul Reed Smith was now once again able to produce their single-cuts.

Another famous example of lawsuit guitars is the late 70′s Ibanez copies of the Les Paul and Rickenbacker Bass. I’ve held each of these in my hands on several occasions, and they are very much spot on a recreation of their subject. Ibanez was well-established with their own models at this time, and trying to make it into the American market a bit more than they already were. They already had the Iceman and other designs, so finding a unique shape wasn’t an issue for them. Japan at the time was a haven for copyright and trademark infringement that is similar to what China is today. When these went to market, Ibanez was promptly and rightly sued by Gibson and Rickenbacker. The models were soon pulled, and they are now something of a collector’s item. They are very good instruments. Ibanez obviously has gone on to good things in the marketplace, and all is well.

And to make the most important point here, Ibanez put their name on these instruments, it was the wrong company’s design, but their logo, they were not trying to pass theirs as a Gibson or a Rickenbacker, just their version of those instruments.

I hope this clarifies the difference between these two terms.

One other point of significance is if a guitar store buys a no-name guitar that resembles a Strat, a Gibson or anything else, or a counterfeit, they are not allowed to call it a “Strat copy”. Even that is seen as infringining on the brand trademark.