Gibson USED?

[Grahame Myers]

A client bought a Gibson ES345 in for a new bone nut and a set up. He bought it secondhand, and the previous owner told him it was a direct import from the US. On the back it has "USED" stamped into the wood underneath the SN. I guess Gibson stamped it, as it looks like it was done before the guitar was spray finished. But what does it mean? Just curious, never seen this before.

 

Grahame

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

I'm pretty certain that instruments so marked were used as salesman's samples or for trade shows. But it wouldn't surprise me if Gibson would mark them "used" rather than "seconds" which usually meant a finish defect.

 

Joshua

[Grahame Myers]

Strange you should say that, it has wine red overspray on the white fretboard binding that sits on the body. Gibsons QC strikes again?

 

Grahame

[Ned Knepp]

Everytime I've ever seen this it was on a "second". Usually bad finish but it can be because of other problems that just don't get noticed in time to be corrected or removed from production before it was finished.  I haven't seen anything that was structural in nature it's always been cosmetic.

 

Ned 

[chris snyder]

The "used" means it was repaired by an outside company, ie not Gibson. Its a legal issue. If it were from a trade show there would be no need to mark it as such, for what ever reason people want T.S. guitars. Stores will buy the whole lott from a NAMM show. Most likely this guitar had something more going on with it, Gibson did not want to repair it, so they sold it under manf. cost and wrote it off.

[Arthur Sweeney]

I used to have a Gibson Epiphone, that was stamped "used".
I believe it means the guitar did not pass Quality Control when
it was made, so before leaving the factory, they stamped it
'used' and sold it off to some other dealer.

[Thomas James]

Check out http://www.mircweb.com/  These guys do this on a large scale. But mostly non-USA stuff from what I remember. They also change the serial numbers on some items.