Gibson Les Paul Standard 60s BB

On inspecting my new guitar I found the following issues:
binding very badly finished with small gouges out of the fretboard, rough frets, bits of dried polishing compound stuck to the lacquer, some fisheye marks in the lacquer, top of headstock poorly finished, control cavity cover plate fitted crooked, a shallow indentation in the wood at the back of the body, some marks on the bridge pickup cover. My 2017 Les Paul Classic T has none of these issues. The guitar is sitting in its box in the hall ready to be returned tomorrow. I was really looking forward to this purchase, to say I am disappointed is an understatement and would not purchase a new Gibson again unless I could inspect it first as Gibson quality control can't be trusted unfortunately.

I received The gibson les paul standard 60s bourbon burst guitar from thomann but it has so many blemishes and defective from factory in so many areas in the guitar which is not acceptable for the guitar in this price range or even in cheap guitars as follw.
(so I am not blaming thomann)
1- the volume knob reflector piece fall off when I take out the guitar from the case.
2- small white spot under the clear coat finish.
3- Fretboard binding has scratches in several places and some of them not finished properly and the frets nips at the upper register frets from the 19th fret up to last fret as you see in the pictures.
4- the paint job is very poor around the neck meets the body and the binding joint it has orange peel feeling and looks ugly as you can see in the pitures.
5- the nut have some parts flaking off the nut under the strings as you can see.
6- the headstock have also bad painting job and orange peel with bubbles.
7- the body over all have some light scratches on several places also.

in conclusion what happened at the end I asked thomann to return it and send me replacement they refused they told me i can return it back for full refund because this is normal quality for gibson guitars finishing will show some blemishes or I can keep it and to send me partial refund 30 euros only for the knobs so I prefer to keep it as It is my dream guitar and this is the third time ordering les paul online the previous times i purchased them from different sellers and i returned because of QC issues and I am really in love gibson les paul so this time will be the last time purchasing gibson guitars specially from online stores so I kept the guitar cause i am afraid to return it back and receive another one with worse QC issues and also because I paid 260 euros for the custom in my country which not returnable and I've taken it to a luthier in my country to fix some of the issues and that also cost me another 260 euros cause and now the guitar in better condition but not perfect.

My LP was delivered in impeccable condition, I carefully checked every parts of the guitar's body, assembly, finishing etc... No issues to report. The box is sealed out of Gibson's factory.
In my opinion, the guitar was setup optimally out of the factory.

Somehow the Bourbon Burst's colour tones appear lighter in the flesh than in pictures. It is closer to Ice Tea than it is to Tobacco burst, so not straight in the middle of these tones as I expected it to be. But it's not an issue, and depends on the amount and type of light projecting on the guitar.

I took a bit of a gamble ordering the guitar through UPS during this covid-19 situation. Thomann was extremely fast in handling the shipment, UPS was a little slower than usual out of Germany probably due to custom.
Therefore I will say that it is safe to order during this pandemic lock-down, provided that you consult UPS' website pages describing the shipping situation in your country.

I'm not going to comment on the reasons to buy a Gibson LP and a particular model over an another, at this price range you should know what you are doing in your choice of guitar.

This has been my dream guitar since I first started playing but never committed to because of the high price. Instead I played a lot of other guitars over the years, ranging from budget to very nice options from other market-leading brands but realised I was never going to be happy if I didn't scratch my Les Paul itch, even if it turned out to be a disappointment.

Well, I love it. Every time I play this guitar I can feel the value. The factory setup was very good - perfect intonation - and the fretboard is an absolute dream. I honestly believe this guitar has elevated my playing in the two months that I've been breaking it in and would urge anyone agonising over the decision to go for it.

I see a lot of comments about cosmetic issues, so I'll address those briefly. Firstly, the bursts and flaming vary from guitar to guitar and the pictures used on Thomann's site are of a particularly good-looking (to my eye) guitar so take that into consideration if the look is important to you. Secondly, there were some minor finishing issues on my guitar such as a rough nut and some tape not entirely between the body and neck. I also have a small mar in the finish on the body where the pickguard rests, in spite of the small protective patch. Personally, I consider these all to be inconsequential issues when weighed up against the playability and quality of the instrument as a whole.

After years of denying myself a Les Paul due to the fact that I own quite a lot of guitars I had been searching a lot for the last few months for one. I decided to take a chance and buy this excellent piece of brilliance from Thomann without testing first. There were slight shipping delays but not as much as the sales rep had warned me so I was pleasantly surprised when the courier rang my doorbell last thursday and delivered it to me.

I haven´t been able to put it down ever since!

The tone, resonance, feel, look, weight and every aspect of this instrument is perfect.

The pickups have a phenomenal output and full bodied sound that sound beutiful in all my amps and my various other equipment like the headrush pedalboard.

The service from Thomann was fantastic as usual.

Thank you for a dream come true :)

Hoi,
Zeer snelle levering door onderaannemer van UPS, perfecte staat van verpakking...mooi aangemeld aan de deur...dus dat was vlekkeloos.
Kon dus niet wachten om te zien hoe de rest eruit zag. Omdat ik hier en daar in beoordelingen lees dat de afwerking ondermaats is begon ik maar snel met uitpakken...In de doos van Thomann zat dus de doos van Gibson, mooi vastgezet door opvulmateriaal. Originele doos ook in onbeschadigde staat. Beveiligingstape was nog intact, sinds vertrek bij Gibson was gitaar dus nog niet uit doos geweest...
Koffer is in onberispelijke staat, maar open doen zou ik zeggen :-)
Wow, sta ik even versteld van de afwerking, geen enkele fout te bespeuren...geen lopers, lakfoutjes, geen enkel foutje over heel de gitaar. Potmeters en schakelaar werken perfect.
Zakje met multitool en lederen riem aanwezig samen met een foto van mijn gitaar op de testbank bij Gibson, kaartje van kwaliteitscontrole aanwezig en moet zeggen ze hebben hun job goed gedaan.
Het belangrijkste is natuurlijk het geluid, zeer zuivere cleans, warme klanken bij de neck PU en ook bij meer gain klinkt het super! Gewicht valt zeker mee voor een gitaar zonder gaten. Had hem zwaarder verwacht, maar mijn rus zal niet klagen :-)
Om eerlijk te zijn had ik bang om deze LP via internet te bestellen en was het de bedoeling om bij de plaatselijke hoofdverdeler eentje te testen en van daar mee te nemen. Maar de prijs was daar al een kleine 400€ meer voor dezelfde gitaar en al door velen in de pollen genomen, kleine beschadigingen zijn er dan altijd bij. Mijn vorige 2 Gibsons heb ik zo aangeschaft en mag al bij al niet klagen, maar deze is in en ongeziene goede staat, nog door niemand in de pollen genomen (buiten de medewerkers van Gibson).
Ver uit de beste Gibson die ik heb gespeeld, mijn SG en Flying V kunnen hier niet aan tippen.
Een zeer tevreden man dus, Gibson en Thomann doe zo verder ;-)

Clearly Gibson still have some quite serious quality issues. The fretboard was dry like Sahara and it was not very well sanded. You can feel it is lightly rough. You can see tool markings on the fretboard too and some small dints. The stopbar tailpiece was not screwed fully/properly to the body. The setup out of box was quite poor with pretty high action. You can feel the joint between binding and the body and neck like they did not routed really precisely for the binding. One of the tone knobs is quite loose too. Factory strings are crap. Unbelievable how it passed their QA. I'll keep it because I've been waiting for it and always wanted to have one, but I have to say my two Epis ('59 and StdPro) were much better out of the box and overall better finfish quality, setup, etc. I'd say the extra €1500-€1700 seems to be for the shipping from US and the name on the headstock.
Besides the QA issues, overall it is a great instrument and sounds really good, but needed some love (fretboard oil and setup). The rest could be fixed by the good luthier I suppose. That should not be the case though for the instrument in that price range.