CoreyT Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 Hey Bence, I know you are probably in bed, as you are nine hours ahead of Seattle time. Customer Service called me today and indeed this is a '52 Les Paul. A few things that were done was someone added the AMS6262 to the rear of the headstock as '52s did not have serial numbers. Also the top has been repainted. What keeps it from being a loss is they left the front of the headstock alone, it is all stock there. Her dad is around 76 or so, and he will pay for it to be all setup and the electronics gone through, she is going to take it to my PRS dealer who does fantastic work. He use to be a Gibson dealer in the past, but he is the only shop I trust with my guitars in my area. May need new vintage tuners, unless they can be oiled to work again as they are super stiff. Her dad is very excited that it is a '52. Hell I am super excited to have held it, if only it could talk and tell us all who have touched it in the past. I am 58, this thing is older than me :D She is going to get a pic of me tomorrow holding this piece of history. They went for $210 brand new. http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/1952-gibson-les-paul-no-serial-vs-1953-gibson-les-paul-serial-no-3-0602-1 Scroll down to no serial numbers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Hello Corey! I am glad that the case got settled. :) And very envy on You too! ;) I wish, I could hold and play one of those legendary instruments just for a few seconds! :) Not many chances for that, here in Hungary. As for the "serial number". Since, factory serials are always under the clearcoat and this seems to be stamped through the lacquer, - I suspect - it was either added by a previous owner to mark the instrument, or it might be an inventory number of an organization. For example: "Alabama Music School", or such... Who knows. I would not replace anything on this guitar. Try to free up those tuning machines with mixture of mineral oil and naphta injected into the holes (lay the instrument with it's top facing up when doing this). Also, do not apply any kind of cleaner or polishing compound to the checked lacquer surface! Cleaning should be only done using an undyed, 100% cotton rag, lightly dampened with deionized water. (Excuse me, if You already know this). Very nice! :) Best wishes... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyT Posted August 7, 2015 Author Share Posted August 7, 2015 Thanks Bence, I will pass the info along to him when he visits my dealer for a setup on it. I had talked with my dealer yesterday asking him is he wanted to work on a piece of history, and he said yes. Will tell him to try and free up the stock tuners and not replace when with a modern Kluson. What about the fretboard, would you advise the shop to clean it with lemon oil to get the gunk of the fretboard, or to not even touch it? I had a suspicion when she told me her dad was given this guitar that it might be a classic, but I never had an idea it would be one of the first Les Pauls made. Really curious how many 52s were made. I can see why they changed to a better bridge though in '53, that trapeze thing is horrendous :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Hello Corey! I clean rosewood fretboards with pure cotton rag (diapers), slightly dampened with soapy water. When clean, I apply raw, cold-pressed linseed oil. I don't like to use products off the shelf, because I don't know what they might contain. Some "lemon oil" products can make the inlays become loose on the long run. Pure, raw linseed oil is a natural product and has been used for long before various specialized care products were available. I know, it is a debated approach - everyone has it's own idea about it. That's what I do, on my vintage Les Paul with Brazilian rosewood fingerboard too. And if it's good for Mr. Erlewine, who am I to doubt it? Cheers... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyT Posted August 7, 2015 Author Share Posted August 7, 2015 Thanks Bence. I have not had to clean any of my fretboards yet, but I think I bought some Naphta a few years back. Would this stuff from Stew Mac be better to use on mine too? It says it colors the board too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 ...Would this stuff from Stew Mac be better to use on mine too? It says it colors the board too? You are welcome! This product is linseed-oil based. A litre of pure, unbleached and cold-pressed linseed oil is usually cheaper than a small bottle of these products. A litre of it lasts a lifetime, even if You have dozens of instruments. Yes, oils will tint wood. Some more, some less. More on this here: http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/118680-fret-levelling-and-dressing/page__st__20. Page 2, post #35. But please remember, oils do not clean, they condition the fretboard. Naphta is a cleaner. I never used it before. I have readed that it works great on old lacquered surfaces, but unsure about applying it on raw wood. Clean the fretboard first, then oil it. :) Cheers... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyT Posted August 8, 2015 Author Share Posted August 8, 2015 Thanks Bence! Here are a few pics of me with this old axe, and a quick short video. The phone did not pick up the volume very good, but that is a good thing as it sounded like poop :D She is going to bring it back to work once she and her dad get it back from the shop so I can play it when it is actually in tune. I am trying to get her to talk her dad into putting this thing into a lighted display wall cabinet and just display it, and get something else to play that is a lot easier to play. You can see one of my Hercules wall mounts behind me where I keep one of my guitars during the work week. I always try and play a bit in the morning before work, and I have a Blackstar ID15 amp there to jam out on too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 Hello Corey! I guess, it is very hard to mute strings on this guitar. Probably, the bends are not easy either. I am really curious, how the luthier will be able to set the intonation. Indeed, that guitar is rather a display case queen, than a player. A piece of history anyways. :) You have an amp in Your office!? I should ask my boss about that too! However, I know what His answer will be: "You are already too loud!" :D Cheers... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyT Posted August 9, 2015 Author Share Posted August 9, 2015 I hope the shop can work some magic to make it play better. And hopefully he finds something else while there to take home that is easier to play. Yep, I am pretty luck at work as I start early, and most of the building is not populated until several hours later. I can crank that amp up to 10 if I want to, and there would be no one to complain. Later in the day if I want to play during lunch or last break, I have to have it down much more :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Hello! Thinking about the big number of changes the first Les Pauls went through, I am curious and a bit skeptical about the results. Until Gibson settled on the separate tailpiece and bridge arrangement, they tried so many things: stringing it up in a different way, trying out another version of the trapeze unit, setting in the neck with a different angle, plain stop bar, than the lightning bar... It took a while to create a playable version of the guitar. A 50s Tribute would be an excellent substitute. Great sounding, nice instrument. I love mine. Best wishes... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErickC Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 I don't know why they didn't just come up with a low-profile floating bridge and a conventional archtop-style tailpiece... or just use the same neck angle they used on all of their other guitars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyT Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 Bence, it goes into the shop this Wednesday my coworker said. She said her father is looking forward to playing it, and his wife already told him he is not playing it, it will be put on display :D Yes, Eric, would have been nice if they just used a regular bridge like they went to in '53. Found a video of a guy here with one, he is having a hard time keeping it in tune. There is even a video from six years ago with Phil X playing one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 I don't know why they didn't just come up with a low-profile floating bridge and a conventional archtop-style tailpiece... or just use the same neck angle they used on all of their other guitars. They were in a hurry. Leo and George were way ahead of them already and they still couldn't get out of the way of their own disbelief. Those early ones were awful to play, couldn't be intonated, and the paint was terrible. It was a good 4 or 5 years before they got it right. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErickC Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 That they were in a hurry is evidenced by the fact that the Les Paul is more or less a scaled-down, solid-body thinline version of the standard Gibson archtop. Very little was new about it. Yet - the neck angle is shallower than on these very same archtops they were producing day in and day out, such as, say, the ES-295, which also made its debut in 1952, with the same hardware, and none of the problems. Yes, the hollow archtops have a raised fretboard, but they also have a much wider arch with much wider flat areas around the edges to deal with. Lacking these issues, with the same neck angle - 4 degrees or so - the Les Paul would have been fine. Modern Les Pauls are still generally the same 4-5 degrees. They weren't reinventing the wheel, just modifying it - so why waste the time, rush job or no, to change the already-established neck angle instead of taking the easy way out and doing it the same way they had already been doing, albeit with a new mortise-and-tenon joint? It boggles the mind. What I heard was that they set the angle to have the strings wrap below the bridge from the get-go for some as-yet-unknown reason (nevermind having designed the bloody thing, and using it correctly on the ES-295 of the same year), and that Les, after playing the prototype (which, according to Ted McCarty, was the first he'd heard of the guitar that was to bear his name), told them it was a bad idea, after which they, being Gibson, simply didn't listen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 Hello! What I am thinking that they didn't want to use a wooden floating bridge. ABR-1 bridge came out in 1953. Probably, they were after the brighter tones as heard from a Tele? Still, this doesn't explains the neck set angle, though. Best wishes... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErickC Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 What I am thinking that they didn't want to use a wooden floating bridge. ABR-1 bridge came out in 1953. Probably, they were after the brighter tones as heard from a Tele? Even still - all they had to do was everything they were already doing on the ES-295 of the same year, which uses the same tailpiece, but wrapped around the top. That's what drives me nuts - they expended more effort to create a problem! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyT Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 My coworker and her father took it to my dealer Wednesday, and he also authenticated it as a '52. I should hear more on it next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pin Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 Great thread chaps. Keep us all posted on developments please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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