Would You Want Us to Tell You?

There is a question we find ourselves quietly asking in the workshop surprisingly often. Sometimes, it comes up daily.

If we were working on your guitar, your pride and joy, and discovered evidence that it was not what you believed it to be, would you want us to tell you?

It sounds like a straightforward question. When the instrument is sitting on our bench and its owner is standing in front of us, it rarely feels like one.

When something does not quite add up

Luthiery is behind everything we do. Looking closely at how an instrument is built, how its parts fit together and why it behaves the way it does is part of our everyday work. A guitar does not have to arrive for an authenticity check for us to notice something unexpected.

Sometimes it is an obvious detail, such as a missing serial number. Sometimes it is the build quality, which is not what we would expect from the instrument the guitar appears to be. A neck that does not seem to belong with the body. Tuners that do not fit the style or period. Details that, individually, might mean very little, but together begin to raise questions.

Repair work also takes us into places an owner would not normally see. Under hardware, inside cavities or around a neck joint, there can be clues that are hidden during everyday playing. We may find identification marks that appear to have been removed, or numbers and construction details that do not seem consistent with one another.

That is when a routine repair can become a rather different conversation.

Different does not automatically mean fake

Before going any further, this matters: an unusual detail is not proof that a guitar is counterfeit.

Tuners get damaged. Owners replace them, or upgrade them because they prefer a different set. Necks wear out or get broken. Bodies are refinished. Instruments change over decades of use, repair and modification.

Guitars can also be assembled very successfully from parts of older instruments by somebody who knows what they are doing. A well-built parts guitar can be a lovely instrument in its own right. There is nothing inherently wrong with a guitar having a complicated history.

The important distinction is between an instrument that has been repaired, modified or assembled from parts and one that is being presented as something it is not.

A replacement part deserves an explanation, not an immediate accusation. A missing number raises a question; it does not answer every question. We have to look at the whole picture and check what we have noticed before deciding what it might mean.

It is not just a guitar on a workbench

To us, the instrument on the bench is something we have been trusted to look after. To its owner, it may be much more than that.

It might be the guitar they saved for over several years. The model they dreamed of owning when they first started playing. A present from somebody important. The instrument they finally bought after telling themselves, for a very long time, that one day they would.

There may be a story attached to it, too.

Sometimes that story makes us smile. Sometimes it makes us pause. “I got it off my mate down the pub for half what it is worth” is the sort of sentence that can do both.

We all like a bargain. Nobody wants to discover that the bargain was not really a bargain at all.

And nobody particularly wants to be the person who has to say so.

What if the owner already knows?

There is another complication: we may be about to explain something the owner knows perfectly well.

They might have built the guitar themselves. They might know exactly where the replacement neck came from. They may even be the person who put a Fender decal on the headstock of a Squier. That sort of alteration happens, and the person bringing the instrument in may have no illusions about what is underneath the name.

But the next owner might not know. Neither might the person who bought it after that.

Something that began as one person's cosmetic change can become another person's expensive misunderstanding if its history is lost, left unexplained or deliberately misrepresented.

So we cannot simply assume that the owner knows. Equally, we cannot assume they have been deceived just because we have spotted something unusual.

That leaves us choosing our words very carefully.

Not every worrying story starts down the pub

It would be comforting to think these situations only involve a mysterious seller, a car boot sale or a house-clearance auction. Unfortunately, that is not our experience.

We have also seen worrying examples brought to us by customers who bought their guitars from businesses they understood to be reputable, including sellers presenting themselves as specialists in vintage instruments.

That can make the conversation harder still. Buying from a specialist is often a deliberate decision to avoid precisely this sort of uncertainty.

When an instrument appears to have been misrepresented, uncomfortable questions follow. Was something missed when it was bought in? Was its history misunderstood? Were warning signs overlooked? Or did somebody recognise a problem and pass it on rather than take the loss?

We cannot know a seller's intentions simply by examining a guitar, and it would be unfair to pretend otherwise. What we can do is look at the instrument itself, explain what we have found and be clear about what remains uncertain.

A seller's reputation does not make an inconsistency disappear. It does, however, help explain why an owner may be particularly shocked to hear about it.

Would knowing change how you feel about it?

Perhaps you suspected something already. Perhaps the guitar never played quite as well as you expected, and that is why it has come in for repair.

Of course, poor playability alone does not make a guitar fake. Genuine instruments can need work, and a parts guitar can play beautifully. But an existing doubt can make a difficult conversation a little less unexpected.

What if there was no doubt at all?

What if you loved everything about it? The sound, the feel, the way it looked sitting on its stand. Would learning that its identity was not what you thought change your relationship with it?

The guitar would still be the same physical instrument. The notes would not suddenly change. The songs you had played on it would still be yours.

But the story would be different. And if you paid for something it was not, that matters too.

The awkward question we keep coming back to

Our instinct is often that we should mention what we have found. You have trusted us with your instrument, and keeping a significant concern to ourselves does not sit comfortably.

Yet there is a world of difference between pointing out a replaced tuner and telling somebody there is evidence their dream guitar may be counterfeit. We do not want to cause distress over an innocent modification, turn a suspicion into a certainty or make somebody feel foolish for a purchase they were excited about.

Being taken in is not something to be embarrassed about. Convincing instruments and convincing stories can catch people out. That is part of what makes this so difficult.

For us, the challenge is to separate what we can see from what we suspect, and to handle the person with as much care as we handle the guitar.

If we were working on your guitar, your pride and joy, and found convincing evidence that it was counterfeit, would you want us to tell you?

Would you want to see the details and understand what had raised our concerns, even if the answer was upsetting? Would you rather know only about things that affected the repair? Or would you prefer us to leave its history alone?

And beyond whether you would want to know, do you think we should tell you?

It is easy to answer when it is somebody else's guitar.

When it is yours, would you want to know?

Whether you are looking for your next instrument or looking after one you already love, explore our collections of electric guitars, acoustic guitars, classical guitars and bass guitars. For repairs, upgrades and everyday playing essentials, browse our guitar parts, spares and repair components and our wider guitars and accessories collection. If you are unsure what your instrument needs, get in touch with us at Music Bits Company or pop into our Alford shop for a chat.