ESP Lynch M1 Tiger Question...
ESP Lynch M1 Tiger Question...
I own a few ESP's (old Mirage Deluxe neck thru, early 90's Custom M1, and a few 400 Series Strats and a Bass) and have owned more in the past. I love them! Anyway, I can usually spot a fake pretty quickly (I know about the cheap overseas knock-offs and have seen and felt and played the drek guitars first hand), but I have a dilema. Someone wants to sell me a Lynch M1 Tiger, but it has NOTHING on the back of the headstock! I mean my older 400 series and such don't have anything, but I thought this particular signature model (or others from the era) had the circular ESP "Standard", "Custom", or "Signature" logo's on the back of the headstock? There is also no George Lynch "signature" on the front of the headstock. It does have the correct ESP logo and ESP Neck plate with logo. Any clue? Pots, pickups, tremolo, knobs, pegs, etc. are not the cheap pot metal knock off stuff found on the bootlegs either...
Of course photos would help, but I was not in possesion of the instrument. I met up with the guy again and after seeing it (and taking some photos), knew it was a fake right off. I guess i really wanted to believe it was a real one and THOUGHT it had a logo on the neckplate and such, but no. The "Floyd" was a different animal with a "Licensed by" stamping on it, Neckplate was blank, back of headstock was blank, Seynour Duncan stamping on the bridge pickup was sloppily silkscreened, and the Trademark "R" behind the ESP Logo seemed blurry. I will get some photos up soon just to show it, but it seems like this was one of those Chinese knock-offs after all. The guy never admitted it being a real one anyway, but he ended up not wanting to sell it after I pointed those things out. :-)
Photos would help.