Gibson Guitar Company PAF pickups stolen from vintage guitar Kalamazoo, Michigan
I had sent my 1959 Gibson ES-355 Mono back to the Gibson factory in 1981 to have a re-fret and the gold pickup covers replaced. I recently took the pickups out for a prospective buyer and to my shock discovered that Gibson had swapped the original "PAF"'s with regular pickups. This has decreased the value of this guitar by at least $5,000. Evidently someone at the factory wanted the "PAF"'s for himself.
I was counting on the sale of this guitar to supplement my retirement. I have E-Mailed Gibson but received no response. What should I do ?
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Jim
East Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,
USA
Gibson theft
#2General Comment
Sun, December 06, 2009
Unfortunately, the large time span elapsed since the incident will probably prevent Gibson from taking action on your part.
To regain any lost value on the instrument, you could purchase vintage pickups from that period to replace the current ones. They can be found, but can be pricey, as they are vintage parts. A good source for these can be Vintage Guitar magazine.
This is a sad story of theft and greed.