I’m trading a bass for a standard SG in Pelham blue but the serial number has 8 digits and I got another SG post 2005 with a 9 digit serial number. Plus, it indicates it was made in Bozeman, where I understand no electric guitars are made. Am I being scammed? It has fret nibs and everything else actually looks great. Thanks in advance.

Sitting here with nothing better to do I looked through quite a few posts looking at fake gibsons and people asking for help trying to spot it, so I compiled a short list of serial numbers. Also, lps is a standard, lpc is a custom, and lpsup is a supreme, and lpf is a Florentine.
Gibson uses a 9 digit serial number for guitar made post 2006 to about 2014 when they changed it up and then started using the old style again in 2019, the 2014-2018 guitars are impossible to pinpoint to a specific day for the year it was made.

The first digit in the serial number is part of the year that the guitar was produced, the next 3 digits are going to be an indicator as to what day of the year it was stamped, 5 th number also I dictates year as gibson uses a 2 digit year, 6th number is a batch number it will be either 0 or 1 and the last 3 numbers are what order they are in the batch.
Hopefully this list alone can help people to determine if something is a fake, these posts are getting out of hand and people have seem to have forgotten how to use Google and well gibsons website. Anyway here’s all the numbers I recorded.

LPS-017160776 LPS-017160584 LPS-017160332 LPS-017160649 LPS-017160647 LPS-017160642 LPS-017160821 LPS-017160870 LPS-00170437

LPF-00170433

LPSUP-02005608

Les Paul’s customs made after 2003-2004 will have a serial number that is 5 or 6 digits followed by a cs prefix. Les paul custom that have a standard usa serial number that says it was made in 06 are fakes without a doubt. LPC-017160548 LPC-017160856 LPC-017160619 LPC-017160520 LPC-017160580 LPC-017160865 LPC-017160740 LPC-017458251 LPC-00170428 LPC-02005569 LPC-02005608

Most fake les paul customs will have a gibson usa serial number and the serial will say that it’s an 06 guitar, which isn’t possible because lpc were moved to the custom shop sometime between 2003 and 2004.

Now just because you have a gibson that has a 2006 serial number doesn’t mean it’s fake. Most (not all) fake gibsons are going to be custom and standard models, tributes, studios, studio Faded it his highly unlikely to be a fake, but just because I’ve never seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Use your resources, use Google photos, use gibsons website, use listings on reverb, educate yourself don’t solely rely on someone else to come to a conclusion about something. Anyway I’m just some random guy on the internet, who cares what I think

If I missed anything feel free to add to it