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Historic Collection 57 BB 2 Pick Up


r11gjh

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Posted

Hi,

 

I am new here and have a question about my Les Paul which I can find little or no info on the WWW.

 

In 1995 I was given a Historic Collection Les Paul 57 BB as an 18th Birthday present and have cherished it for years but without finding out too much about it. My collection of guitars mostly centres around ESP's.

 

I think it is a 93 but have no more info than that, I read a lot about 'pre-historic, Short/Long Tenon, Custom Shop logos, tuners etc, etc. I have attached a SN Pic, If anyone can straighten me out that would be great.

 

Gavin

post-79528-090299400 1467825122_thumb.jpg

Posted

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

If it is, as you say (and there's no reason to doubt you), a re-issue of a BB then it goes by the earlier serial numbering system and would almost certainly have been made in 1993.

Does the guitar have a 'Historic Collection' waterslide at the neck/peghead area on the rear?

 

Once the Historic Division (now called Custom Shop) was set up in '93 they took on production of the re-issues.

As a general rule-of-thumb; before this time the r-i's are known informally as the 'pre-historics'. Once the H-D was up and running these instruments were called the Historics proper but during the '90s the instruments usually follow the X YZZZ system whereby X is the model-year of the re-issue being made (i.e. 4=1954 r-i; 7=1957; 0=1960 etc.), Y is the last digit of year it was made and ZZZ is the number in the run.

 

Here's a shot of my R9 for the sake of comparison. Serial # 9 3131 translates as 1959 R-I made in 1993 production number 131;

 

Rear-2-1-1.jpg

 

As far as the tenon is concerned it might be either. Just remove the neck p'up next string change and it will be obvious if there is a long-tenon in there!

Custom Shop has been around since at least the 1940's and the use of waterslides has been observed since the '80s. These took many different forms over the years.

When the Historic Division was set up they used one like the one seen here (on the same R9 as earlier);

 

HistoricCollectionlogo-1.jpg

 

Quite soon afterwards in an effort to make the R-I's more accurate the waterslide idea was dropped. My '95 R0 has no such slide.

 

Grovers and Klusons have both been used on the BBs over the years. No idea of the timeline on that one, though. Not even sure there was any real fixed idea beforehand as to what would be used year-by-year but I could well be wrong.

 

More pics incuding some of the front would be nice...

 

[smile]

 

Pip.

Posted

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

If it is, as you say (and there's no reason to doubt you), a re-issue of a BB then it goes by the earlier serial numbering system and would almost certainly have been made in 1993.

Does the guitar have a 'Historic Collection' waterslide at the neck/peghead area on the rear?

 

Once the Historic Division (now called Custom Shop) was set up in '93 they took on production of the re-issues.

As a general rule-of-thumb; before this time the r-i's are known informally as the 'pre-historics'. Once the H-D was up and running these instruments were called the Historics proper but during the '90s the instruments usually follow the X YZZZ system whereby X is the model-year of the re-issue being made (i.e. 4=1954 r-i; 7=1957; 0=1960 etc.), Y is the last digit of year it was made and ZZZ is the number in the run.

 

Here's a shot of my R9 for the sake of comparison. Serial # 9 3131 translates as 1959 R-I made in 1993 production number 131;

 

Rear-2-1-1.jpg

 

As far as the tenon is concerned it might be either. Just remove the neck p'up next string change and it will be obvious if there is a long-tenon in there!

Custom Shop has been around since at least the 1940's and the use of waterslides has been observed since the '80s. These took many different forms over the years.

When the Historic Division was set up they used one like the one seen here (on the same R9 as earlier);

 

HistoricCollectionlogo-1.jpg

 

Quite soon afterwards in an effort to make the R-I's more accurate the waterslide idea was dropped. My '95 R0 has no such slide.

 

Grovers and Klusons have both been used on the BBs over the years. No idea of the timeline on that one, though. Not even sure there was any real fixed idea beforehand as to what would be used year-by-year but I could well be wrong.

 

More pics incuding some of the front would be nice...

 

[smile]

 

Pip.

 

http://s50.photobucket.com/user/r11gjh1/media/IMG_4497_zpsl3prit9o.jpg.html?sort=3&o=5

http://s50.photobucket.com/user/r11gjh1/media/IMG_4513_zps3tdarpru.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

http://s50.photobucket.com/user/r11gjh1/media/IMG_4511_zpsflaqiili.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2

http://s50.photobucket.com/user/r11gjh1/media/IMG_4510_zpsfjxrdf8r.jpg.html?sort=3&o=3

http://s50.photobucket.com/user/r11gjh1/media/IMG_4509_zpsbalyrmxj.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4

 

Thanks for the reply. As you can see from the pics it has the waterslide on the reverse of the headstock, I will check the tenon next time I have the strings off. It is all stock except from Gold Routing covers and Strap Locks have been added.

 

Gavin

Posted

Thanks for posting the extra pics, Gavin.

Can't go wrong with a BB.

 

It's certainly a Historic Re-issue of the '57 Custom. The 'Historic Collection' waterslide and the ABR-1 leave no doubt. A USA-line guitar would have had a Nashville bridge.

 

As the waterslide appears to be identical to the one on mine it's a pretty fair bet your guitar does indeed date from '93. I checked and the R7BB was definitely available from the start of Historic Division production. AFAIK the slide was still there in '94 but as your serial no. is not to the X YZZZ format it might mean that it's from the early part of the '93 year possibly before the X YZZZ system was fully adopted???

I'm sorry I can't shed any more light on this matter.

 

From what I can gather the '93s are meant to have had a long tenon although I have seen examples with a short tenon too.

 

Pip.

Posted

Thanks for posting the extra pics, Gavin.

Can't go wrong with a BB.

 

It's certainly a Historic Re-issue of the '57 Custom. The 'Historic Collection' waterslide and the ABR-1 leave no doubt. A USA-line guitar would have had a Nashville bridge.

 

As the waterslide appears to be identical to the one on mine it's a pretty fair bet your guitar does indeed date from '93. I checked and the R7BB was definitely available from the start of Historic Division production. AFAIK the slide was still there in '94 but as your serial no. is not to the X YZZZ format it might mean that it's from the early part of the '93 year possibly before the X YZZZ system was fully adopted???

I'm sorry I can't shed any more light on this matter.

 

From what I can gather the '93s are meant to have had a long tenon although I have seen examples with a short tenon too.

 

Pip.

 

Thanks Pip for the info. As I am not a collector or expert in Gibson this really helps. My field is more ESP guitars.

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