I'm sure we all know the stories of "This-brand-was-at-their-best-in-this-period-because-of-them-using-those-materials-and-using-these-kinds-of-pickups-making-them-better-than-that-brand-that-was-going-through-a-very-bad-period-because-of-management-issues-and-poor-quality-control" with which the guitars of a brand are being sold for high prices and everybody praises them into heaven.
But let's talk about the instances where we found out for ourselves that most of that actually is a load of hot air. And the instrument failed to live up to it's reputation.
In my own case it involved an Ibanez Les Paul Copy from 1977, it had the works: the post-lawsuit headstock, the correct square butt-neck, the super 70 humbuckers and was original down to the tiniest screw. The kind of guitar everybody says was better than the real thing, a collector's dream...
...a complete nightmare.
Because the stock tuners would slip constantly, those fabled "Super 70" pickups sounded aweful, squeeling and mircrophonic, the bolt on neck shifted in the pocket. "Better than a real Gibson" my ass!
In order to make this guitar work I replaced the pickups with Dimarzio Humbuckers and the tuners with Schallers and I used grazy glue to keep the neck from shifting... ever again! And when I sold it the guy buying it was calling me crazy for having performed all those mods, in his opinion I "Defaced a work of art", in my opinion however I made a usable guitar from that piece of shit.
Nope for me that guitar was a wake-up call, most of those claims they make are false.
