The ShadowMusic Web Community

A few moments ago I read the VARIAX entry under Guitars and Amps section on this forum and saw the link to TradeTang.com at the foot of the entry and followed it to see what would come up. I was astonished to find, amongst other things, a guitar offered fro sale at little over $300 purporting to be a Gibson L5. I have long hankered for one of these and know that they normally sell for £5000+. I studied the details and the pictures which clearly show it to be a Gibson, made in te USA. I may be a very cynical and suspicious individual but at $300 I doubt this come from a Gibson factory or from the USA.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this organisation and how they can be offering badged instruments at the prices they are advertising?

Brian

Take a look at http://www.tradetang.com/for-sale/2010- ... 78578.html

Hmm...
As a guess, I'd say they aint the real McCoy!
Theyre from China, same as my Rolex and Tag Heur... a bargain at £20.
Check out the strats and teles...

http://stores.tradetang.com/store_searc ... yword=JDAV

http://stores.tradetang.com/store_searc ... yword=JDAU

http://stores.tradetang.com/store_searc ... yword=JDAT

at a guess i think your right peter

Heard things about this lot before- not sure if it was this site or Charlie Hall's site. Best avoided like the plague.

Simon

A quick search on Google will provide all the info you need.

This is one of them:

I did order a Gibson L-5 guitar and was sent a bad copy of a guitar not close. I have desputed the item and have found that seller does not respond. Tradetang service does not respond. More to come on the results of this problem.

'Nuff said

BrianD wrote:Does anyone have any knowledge of this organisation and how they can be offering badged instruments at the prices they are advertising?

Brian

Hi Brian,

These guitars are of course counterfeit ones ! Buying one of those is a gamble, you might as well get a good copy, a crap one or nothing !
Last year a friend of mine bought a Strat from such a Chinese supplier (not the same one), it was supposed to be a fiesta red Marvin model with gold hardware and birdseye maple neck for around $300.
Many reminders were necessary to have the guitar delivered, an when it finally came it was just a bad copy of a basic strat with none of the announced specifications...

Didier

On the cited guitar's page, some of the pictures are close-ups of a real Gibson L5-CES (the headstock), whereas most are pictures of the actual guitar they're selling, which is not a Gibson L5-CES (even if it turns out to bear the words "Gibson" and "L5-CES"). As others have said, it's a con, designed to get you to buy a cheap guitar, albeit at a cheap price.

You can get a £300 archtop semi anywhere, loosely copied from the Gibson / Guild / Epiphone designs. That same horrible tailpiece design is used on a lot of different brands. Just to scale up the proportions, a genuine Gibson L5 tailpiece (the same item is used on the carved-top acoustic and the CES electric model) would cost nearly as much as that guitar...

JN