Man do I want a Les Paul Junior, have done for ages; beautiful cleans, dirty blues, classic rock and gritty punk, (and Green Day covers when no one is listening, shh). So, every now and then I peruse the ‘Bay looking for a beaten up 50’s junior and lament my dwindling bank balance and impending fatherhood that stops me forking out enough money to buy a used car on a single dog eared p90 adorned slab of mahogany.
Anyone at Gibson want to send me a voucher for a free V.O.S. vintage sunburst ’57 just email me. What the hell, I’ll take one at cost, please.

Props to the seller from ‘fessing up to not knowing diddly about guitars but to discovering that it is indeed a fake. The shape of the guitar and the neck are fine, the pick guard is definitely not right, the wrap over tail piece should be at a slight angle to improve intonation and the p90 pick up, (or in the Billie Joe’s case H90) should be closer to the tail piece. The tone pot should be closer in towards the volume, and on the white finished version have black top hats with no silver insert.

The headstock shape is an improvement on many of the fakes shown on this site but a very close look at the Les Paul signature shows no fluctuation in the thickness of line. The back of the headstock has a mock up of a Gibson USA serial number showing us that this guitar, this Billie Joe Armstrong signature guitar, was built on the 17th of January 2000, a full seven years prior to it’s release, when Billie was playing a fernandes copy of a Fender stratocaster called Blue, with a humbucker shoved in the bridge position.

On the back you’ll see the cavity cover is too long with straight ends, as opposed to being rounded on the originals. Also worth mentioning is the case, a real Billie Joe Les Paul Junior comes with a real rock n’ roll, (or ridiculous, depends on where you stand with fake Leopard skin) lined case with Green Day symbols on the outside.

As you can see, a fair bit different from the real model, (above).