singemonkey wrote:
To my knowledge, in the early years, Gibson only introduced a single lawsuit around which this entire myth is based. That was against the US importers of Ibanez - a bit pointless since they'd already changed the headstock on the guitar. I believe they settled out of court.
Much more recently, Gibson took Tokai to court in Sweden over the use of the term "Les Paul" in some of their copy. They lost. It was found that even in Gibson's own literature, they had used that term as a generic reference to a type of guitar rather than referring specifically to their product. So the term was ruled generic. These are the only cases I know about. Although the threat of legal action has prevented Japanese clones from being sold in various countries - most notably, of course, the USA.
I've heard that some Hondos were well made. But in general, all of the very worst guitars (and banjo) I've ever set my hands on were Hondos. Practically unplayable.
If you've got good examples, that's great. But in general Hondo is acknowledged to be the exception that proves the rule about Japanese production quality. I've also heard that many of their LP pickups have single-coils under the humbucker covers.
ill strip out the pups next weekend and check if they are infact singlecoils
