hrbndrckr

thats very true. being a guitar lover/ fanatic, i always go to the local music store in my area everyday just to try their guitars and stuff- and i've befriended the sales persons there and all of them know me by name. And they're very nice folk- they all let me try all the stuff in the store even though they know I wouldn't buy anything LOL. And I've learned from trying most of the guitars in the store that no two guitars are alike- even if its the same model made by the same one person. It follows the same concept that the greek philosopher Heraclitus said: "You cant step on the same river twice."

As a kid, I was brainwashed by the media of thinking that Gibsons are the best and are always 100% reliable when it comes to quality until I have the chance to play them for quite some time now because I always try them all at the store- and I found out from trying every model that not all of them are quality guitars- some of them can be pretty quite crappy for the price people pay for them. Only a select few sounds very good. It's the same case with Epiphones. I've seen and heard Gibsons that are worse than Epiphones and also have seen and heard Epiphones that are better than Gibsons. That's why when I had the money to buy a guitar, I decided to buy a guitar that is not a Gibson to save me money because Gibsons aren't as good as their reputation anyways. It just so happened that after spending more than five hours in the store trying all their guitars- the epiphone was the most beautiful of all- not just the looks but also the tone. Being a limited edition epiphone I think the materials that they used in this guitar are far better than the normal Epi lps out there. Just look at my electronics.

Usually the toggle switch and pots always comes off with cheap guitars but i'm proud to say that i've never have any problems with any of mine.

Second, I found the stock pickups pretty good and are much nicer and more decent than the other stock pus that epi uses on their normal epi lp guitars. The ES uses Gibson USA pickups- both alnico v's- a 57 in the neck and a hot humbucker on the bridge which are the same once epi used on the 50th anniversary lp- even most of the people that i know of where happy with these pus and decided to keep them.

Third, the wood in mine is actually nice and thick- its thick enough that a dual concentric pot that otherwise would fit in other guitars wouldn't fit in my guitar without having to route the body!

Fourth, I love the design- my guitar is hollow inside with f holes- its just the perfect guitar that I've been looking for.

My only problem with the guitar is that the gold plating tarnished pretty quick so I had to replace the hardware with some Gibson replacement parts, gold plated them (a friend who works at a car shop did it for free), and attached them to my guitar so I wouldn't have to worry about wear for a long time. I wasnt going to change the PUs but in the end, I decided to totally change the PUs with classic 57s and add graphtech's GHOST piezo system just to see if pus do make a big difference in guitar tone and i learned that it does. My guitar now is much more versatile- its like having an lp, an es 335, and an acoustic all in one guitar and I must say I'm very happy with it.

I just asked about the difference between a production line guitar and an out of production line guitar because a friend is selling me a beautiful Gibson les paul florentine made in 99 for almost 2 grand. I'm just wondering if I should buy it. I know from Gibson customer service that it was discontinued in 1998 but just like my epi, its also made after the model was supposedly discontinued and i'm just trying to see if by buying it, i can make more money out of it being an oddball guitar. But I guess this concept only works in high end guitars right?