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WHere To Get Original Les Pauls?


gibsonoriginalwanter

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I can't believe they are available just like that (if you have the money of course). I thought they were near impossible to get hold of.

 

Has anyone actually played one? I would love to hear what all the hype is about.

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You can buy a 70s Les Paul for about the same price as a brand new model. The local Guitar Center has a 1974 Les Paul Custom, wine red with gold, for $2500. It's a bit damaged after being on the rack for a few months, but if you catch one in good condition that hasn't been abused yet, they're not a bad price.

 

Compared head-to-head with a modern Gibson, I didn't see anything wrong with the Norlin.

 

The pre-SG models cost a bit more.

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I can't believe they are available just like that (if you have the money of course). I thought they were near impossible to get hold of.

 

Has anyone actually played one? I would love to hear what all the hype is about.

 

Most good-sized guitar shows will have 58-60 burst or two. Two years ago the Orlando show had three in that era - all between $200' date='000 and $350,000. The picture below was from last year - not sure of the price on this one - I didn't ask.

 

[img']http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk261/morettaj/IMG_0023-1.jpg[/img]

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As for playing them ... never played a '59. But I have played Duane Allman's '57 gold top. This one... http://www.duaneallmansgoldtop.com/

 

Goldtop_rt.jpg

 

The current owner is a friend of mine. One day as I walk in his guitar shop he hands me this guitar and tells me to play it. After I'm at it a while he tells me what it is and suddenly I'm afraid I'll drop it. That is probably why he didn't tell me first!

 

As for the sound, it was probably 15 years ago, so I don't remember a lot about its sound. I wish I did. Plugged it into an old Marshall head, and it sounded great, but I couldn't tell you why or what specifically - too long ago. Very mellow and smooth with lots of sustain as I recall, but that describes a lot of Les Pauls. It was also very ugly then - before the Tom Murphy refinish it sports now!

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Well I've learned something here. Everytime I read about one I get the impression that they are like gold dust. I suppose it is a case of affording one. Are there huge differences when compared to an R9? That's a guitar that I would like see myself owning eventually..... amongst others of course :-)

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not neccessarily original' date=' just fairly early, how do you get hold of ones from the 60s?[/quote']

 

Get hold of a copy of Vintage Guitar magazine. There are quite a few vintage guitar dealers listed there. There are a surprising number of early '50's LPs for sale, but you want to be aware that some of these are barely playable in the modern idiom without a refret (some have extremely low frets). Be prepared for medium to high five-figure prices for decent ones. '58's, '59's and '60's are actually out there and available (several at the last guitar shows I was at), and there are actually some dealers ready to deal on them because they've got lots in them and they're not making much money these days on most of their other guitars. If you're looking for something from one of those three years, you'd better take along a real expert able to tell you what's original, what's probably not, and what the guitar's value will be based on all of that.

 

I think the first ones out of the box back in late '67 were the P90 gold top and then the gold top with the small Epiphone humbuckers tucked into plastic adapters that were squooshed into the P90 routs. After that there was a black custom with "real" humbuckers, and that was pretty much it. As so often happens with Gibson, they didn't "get" that what people really wanted was a reissue of the cherry sunburst, and by then Norlin was in charge, and Gibson would be producing mostly hash for the next decade.

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