I currently own 4 Les Pauls. A '97 Classic Plus, an '03 Standard, a '21 Gold Top and a '21 Custom Shop R9 ('59 reissue). All of them have exactly the same design of top hat knobs. The only very slight variance is that the gold of the Custom Shop reissue's knobs is a very slightly different shade of gold. But they all feature indented numbers, of the same colour and size, and look identical.
I bought two sets of Gibson knobs to replace a few cracked knobs on my older Les Pauls. These 'official' replacement knobs look nothing like the original Gibson knobs from either my '97, '03, or 2x '21s. The colour of the knob and of the numbers is wrong. The size of the numbers is wrong. If I wanted any old cheap top hat knob I could have bought them from ebay from a far east supplier. I bought Gibson knobs because I expected the Gibson knobs to look like the real Gibson knobs I already have. Now I know that Gibson will sell spares/parts that are nothing like their own genuine parts fitted to their own guitars.
Now I realise why there is a market in more expensive, independent, third party manufacturers of specialist replacement parts for Gibsons, that are not made by Gibson, but actually look authentically like the real Gibson parts.
