This Chinese Les Paul is based upon the USA Supreme model and although it looks like the real thing it is actually anything but, especially in the hardware department!!
The unknown wood choice has been painted over in a very thick black paint: this can be seen when the pickups are removed. Also the pickups are poor quality, very low output. The frets are some of the worst I’ve come across, (like early Epiphone types before Epiphone upped their game) and current Epiphone models have far better frets. Even after a good fret dress there are still dead spots that only a total re-fret will cure. Volume and tone controls are also poor quality and only one pot is crackle free even after a good squirt of switch cleaner so replacement to a higher spec pot would be needed.
Having said all that, paying around £300 for one of these and taking into account the component upgrade costs you still won’t achieve something halfway decent because you’d still end up with a poor quality guitar with bad tone wood and also poorly fitted nut, bridge and tailpiece studs that rattle (all tone sapping areas). A better spend on a low budget would be on an Epiphone Les Paul as they are generally of a far superior quality.
It does say “Gibson” on the headstock but I personally would advise not to pay too much attention to it’s brand intention/imitation!!!!!
famousfrets 