EDIT:  We’ve decided to keep the site pure Pre-Samick Pre-Gibson to maintain the purity of the original brand.  Cuz that be what it’s all about!

I/we are presented with a bit of a dilemma.  Someone submitted a Gorgeous Custom Pro, with a serial number in the 3XXX range.  As you may have read in my post about “Transitional VA’s”, the general rule of thumb I learned from Martin is that serials over 2400 are suspect (and most likely) of the transitional time when Samick was taking over, with still a lot of the US VA crew still working in the US shop.

Mine , VA02761 (seen above), is an absolutely stunning Red Quilt Maple body with an ebony fingerboard, HSS EMG’s, that also plays like a dream and has not a bad sound in the guitar, irregardless of pickup selector choice.

I/we hate to be snobs about this, but our general feeling is that this site is dedicated to Pre-Samick/Gibson Valley Arts, and don’t want to dis in any way the quality of the Transition models.  But they’re just not pure Originals.

So what to do about it?  I know we *could* create a separate section/model designation for them, but does that impact the purity of the Original VA site?

And what is a nice way to tell someone that it isn’t appropriate to list on this site?

I’ll post this on assImeanfacebook as well for input.

Comments?