scarecrow Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 Hey Thought I'd sign up and hopefully get an expert to tell me when my guitar was made. It's a 20th anniversary Les Paul Custom. Made sometime in the 70's. I bet that cleared half the room. What a nightmare period. Anyway, I bought this beast 2nd hand in the early eighties. I changed the tuners to Schallers and the pups to Bill Lawrence R500/L500. It now needs new pots, bridge, tuners blah blah blah. A big project to say the least. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tx-ogre Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 Welcome aboard. Good luck with your search for information. Have you tried contacting Gibson Customer Service? I’ve contacted them in the past and they are usually helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave F Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 Welcome to the forum! See if this helps https://www.gibson.com/Support/Serial-Number-Search Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 Tried that. Just added to the confusion. This is what I got so far. Serial number stamped on back of headstock is 398733, suggesting a 1974 or 1975 vintage. Under the serial number is Made In USA. Now is where it gets weird. Pots are 70-026 being 300K. 137743 means it was made by CTS. 743 means the pot was made in 1977 in the 43rd week. But it has a 6 digit serial number, not 7. So it could not have been made in 1977. Pups are T Tops. I measured them at 7.38k. Is it possible they assembled the guitar and not added wiring until a few years later. Or possibly said let's assemble any left overs and wire them up and sell them. Wish I had a dollar for every set of Boomers this girl has seen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retired Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 While their are experts that abound here, maybe one might be by and help but like it was already mentioned, have you contacted Gibson customer service? This might help? Gibson Customer Service; 1-800-4GIBSON or send them an E-mail; service@gibson.com. Thats exactly what I did when I bought my Gold Top. I e-mailed them with the serial numbers and questions I had. They gave me a response within the next day or so with the year it was made, the plant it was made at, what it sold for when it left the plant and the fact it was indeed a Standard. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted May 19, 2019 Author Share Posted May 19, 2019 I was just ready to hit the send button to Gibson when I thought I better have another look at the pot numbers. This time I completely de soldered them and cleaned them up. 137743 now becomes 1377437. That makes it a 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom 20th Anniversary model. Whoohoo. Big smiles all round. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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