Greco Les Pauls

Riaan

Does anyone have experience with Greco guitars? As far as I can find out it's a Japanese make and apparently their Les Paul and Strat copies are quite good. There are a few of them on EBay, dating from the early 90's. Is there a specific period when these guitars were particularly good (or bad)? Are they better than Epiphones?

AlanRatcliffe

Stunning guitars by all accounts. Right up there with Burny for a Japanese Les Paul. They made some of the best LPs during the late '70s early '80s, until they started producing the Japanese Fenders (for Fender, not copies).

Riaan

The one I'm looking at right now has the following description:

1978 Greco Peter Frampton Custom.Ultra rare model and in very nice condition.Body is chambered Mahogany with a maple top,exactly as Gibsons Frampton Custom shop LP.Gold hardware,block inlay,split diamond inlay with full width headstock,Greco Deluxe tuners and a subtle gold metallic through black finish make this an absolute killer.

Current bid is at about 650 Australian dollars. How does that sound? Shipping to here will be 50 US dollars.

If I win this one my wife's gonna kill me...

AlanRatcliffe

Eep! Half an hour to closing - I'll type quickly. The AUD is quite strong at the moment, so$635 + $50 = R5027 + Duties = R5781 .

The three pickup Les Pauls are less collectable and fetch lower prices. Not quite up to the Greco standards from '79 onwards (weight relieved and it's a sycamore body (more commonly used on flamenco acoustics). White humbucker surrounds need changing to cream to match the binding (are they original?).

All in all, If you get it at that price, it's OK, but don't bid any higher. I think you should try and find a '79 - '81 model or a Burney for your money. So don't chase it too hard.

Riaan

Thanks Alan! I think I'll let this one go, they've already past $700 AU with half an hour to go...that's too much. Just as well though...no need for elaborate tales when the promised living room sofa fails to materialize, but another guitar appears shortly thereafter... ?

Riaan

It finally went for AU $1,076.00...Eish!

JoeyBones

You can get a decent Les paul for a little more than that.

AlanRatcliffe

Riaan wrote: It finally went for AU $1,076.00...Eish!

Damn! That's a lot more than I would have thought. Maybe there's something I don't know about the Frampton model. For me, a 3 pickup model LP isn't as nice as a 2 pickup one.

JoeyBones wrote: You can get a decent Les paul for a little more than that.

A lot of people consider the Greco Les Pauls to be better than the Gibsons....

arthur

Damn, I loved the Greco - they were always a little past my reach financially (as a non pro guitarist I could never justify it) - shows you how poor I've always been haahaa! Not that they're totally out of reach, there were other guits out there which were R8k about 10 years ago which is like R40k nowadays. The crappy R800 guitar (I bought about 10 years ago) has been tweaked and modified to sound like I'm on a fender strat (with the right amp of course). So don't stress, you'll find a cool guit when the timing is perfect (sofa's aren't on order and so on hehe)
Cheers
Art