Gibson Les Paul or Alternative

Unless you are a diehard Fender fan and need that single coil sound, most people would love to have a Gibson Les Paul. The only problem is the price. The lowest Gibson Les Paul Standard model costs $2,000 before taxes and the one above on the left is $2,300 before taxes. Most of us who enjoy playing guitar cannot afford or justify this purchase.

Gibson knows this and has a few alternatives. They have a studio model that is priced between $800-$1400 depending on which model you choose, but the $800 ones are really nothing special, and are not the same as the higher end Les Pauls.

Another option is the Epiphone brand. Epiphone makes cheaper versions of Gibson Guitars. The catch is the quality of the product. A standard plus top Epiphone Les Paul is made in China, not America, does not come with a case and is still $550. After the case, you have spent $600 on a Chinese made copy that has inferior tuning stability, inferior bridge, inferior nut, inferior craftsmanship and far worse pickups. Although it is much cheaper, you are getting what you pay for. You can upgrade everything except the craftsmanship, but you will be investing over $1,000 in total, which would be a poor investment.

There are other brands that also have alternatives to this dilema, but I might leave that for a later post, because we could go on and on for hours. For this post we will just stick to my solution.

The best solution in my opinion is to go to the used market. Epiphone made a limited edition Joe Perry (from Aerosmith) Custom Shop Epiphone Les Paul Standard (pictured above on the right), which has amazing reviews and can be found from time to time on Ebay. In good condition and with a case, these seem to go for around $500. The great thing about these is when they first came out, the Epiphone factory was in Korea, not China and quality was far better than it is in today's Chinese factory. On top of that this model came from the factory with USA Gibson BurstBucker pickups installed(a $200 upgrade, which would be even more if you had a Gibson certified luthier install them for you), which is the biggest difference in sound between an Epiphone and Gibson. It is also the most expensive upgrade if you were to do it yourself. Even if you upgraded this Guitar with Gibson Vintage tuning machine heads, tone pros bridge and saddles and a superior nut, after having a Gibson certified luthier install your upgrades for you, total investment would still only be about $800 at the most for an outstanding guitar. To me this seems to be the best choice. I plan on doing this myself within the next few months and I will post pictures and videos of me playing it after it is finished. Good luck to everyone out there trying to find the right guitar for them and keep rocking!

Check out the video in my other post that shows someone using a stock Epiphone Joe Perry Custom Shop Les Paul