Any info on this one

[Janoschili]

So back in 1996 a friend of mine committed suicide and I inherited his guitar - the Gibson decals are fake of course, I assume it’s a Japanese copy from the 70ern/80ies maybe - dotted neck, it plays and sounds totally awesome, I would love to find out more about this guitar.

 

[Go Nigel Go]

It's hard to tell much without some more closeups. The bolt on neck indicates somebody other than Gibson made it of course, but it looks like a pretty nice copy all in all. If it plays good and sounds good, that is the most important thing. If I saw it in a music store I would for sure pick it up and give it a try.

I am no expert, but I think 1970's Japan is a good rough first guess. The Gibson shaped headstock indicates it could be a pre-lawsuit era copy since most manufacturers changed the headstock shape after that. Some of those copies were pretty decent instruments, some less so. It all depends on how good the workmanship is.

I'm sure some here could help narrow it down, I would suggest starting with some closeups of the headstock (front and back), showing the serial number if you are comfortable with that, as well as opening it up a little bit and showing closeups of anything with markings such as electronics, pickups, hardware, etc.

It is always cool to find out the history of an instrument. Sometimes you can't get everything nailed down, but it is fun to try.