Grog Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 That was an unbelievable price! it is worth more than double that.......... This one has been on eBay for quite a while, http://www.ebay.com/itm/GIBSON-LES-PAUL-PERSONAL-1969-VINTAGE-COLLECTORS-CONDITION-PIECE-OF-HISTORY-/291238757989?pt=Guitar&hash=item43cf2ec665 I found one other one that the store was selling for $5,000.00 when I bought mine. Mine isn't quite as nice as yours from what I can tell & I bought it for $3,300. It was listed for $3,999.00. That was the cheapest one in good condition that I had run into in years of looking. Willies had a Les Paul Professional with a headstock repair for sale a year ago for $2,500, it likely went for a bit less. My shipping total book shows.. 1969-(2) 1970-(781) 1971-(116 1972-(0) 1973-(2) For Les Paul Professional shipping totals. I picked up a Les Paul Jumbo last spring. That one is the rarest of the lot. Does your have a neck volute or a "Made In USA" stamp on the back of the headstock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitbox777 Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 Beautiful collection. Looks like you've about got it covered. There is no 'Made in USA' on the back of my Personal's headstock. I suppose you could say mine falls into a transitional period (if one exists) between 60's LP's and the Norlin era. The 60's earmarks would seem to be no 'Made in USA', the Gibson script headstock inlay with no dot on the 'i' and also the open 'o' and 'b' in the script, the 3 pots from 69 and the 892xxx serial number which might indicate the 60's. The Norlin earmarks are the pancake body, the number of headstock and neck plys (can definitely see the 5 plys in the headstock and I suppose that means the neck has to be 3 piece), the lesser angle of the headstock (I suppose I should measure/compare that) and the smallish volute. Here's a picture of what I assume is a volute: Thanks for the additonal context regarding mine's valuation based on your experience. Sounds encouraging. Thanks for the shipping numbers on the Professional. Did they come from a Gibson Rep/Book? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 Mine is a 1971, The Logo has a dotted "i", I guess that's unusual for one of these but haven't really researched it. I have two shipping total books that were supposing taken from Gibson records. One was published by J.T.G. in 1992. The other was published by Larry Meiners in 2001. Both have the same totals for the LP Professional. My 1969 LP Deluxe has the one piece body, no volute or "Made in USA" stamp. The rest of them are all pancake bodies........... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitbox777 Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 Not seeing much in the Recording Series for sale around the net lately. What is has a pretty high price. I hope they get what they're asking for. Unless they're selling it to me. Heard a saying the other day. Land is a good investment because they're not making any more of it. That also applies to a lot of guitars like Paul Personal's and Professionals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I've never really took a hard look at a L-5S seriously. Looking at a gut shot from a guitar on eBay, it looks like it is not switchable from high to low impedance like a Les Paul Recording. It has the same transformer, but it's only option is to run through it with high impedance output. One would think that this would defeat the object of having a low impedance guitar, if you cant run it low impedance. Am I missing something?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L8_4thesh0w Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Hi, all. Please pardon me for butting in. This may be a stupid newb question but, where does that blue wire disappear to? How does that L5-S compare to this one? http://guitars.com/inventory/ed2272-1973-gibson-l-5s-custom I love these low impedance guitars you all have. There are probably a few not far from me. (@ 30 minutes from Nashville) I'm sure everyone that has one knows exactly what it's worth too! Oh yeah, and I LOVE WALNUT! I remember reading about the stereo jack, mic, balanced/unbalanced capabilities but right now I can't recall where. Sorry, maybe it will come to me later. Grog, what is that 335-looking beauty w/asymmetrical cutaway on the left in your photo? Regards to each of you, ϵβ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Hi, all. Please pardon me for butting in. This may be a stupid newb question but, where does that blue wire disappear to? How does that L5-S compare to this one? http://guitars.com/inventory/ed2272-1973-gibson-l-5s-custom I love these low impedance guitars you all have. There are probably a few not far from me. (@ 30 minutes from Nashville) I'm sure everyone that has one knows exactly what it's worth too! Oh yeah, and I LOVE WALNUT! I remember reading about the stereo jack, mic, balanced/unbalanced capabilities but right now I can't recall where. Sorry, maybe it will come to me later. Grog, what is that 335-looking beauty w/asymmetrical cutaway on the left in your photo? Regards to each of you, ϵβ Hi, The blue wire is the ground to the tailpiece. The L5-S is identical to the one at Gruhn's. The gold guitars, (335 like) are Les Paul Signatures, (guitar & bass). Both guitars have a stereo, balanced low impedance line out on the bout. High impedance on the front by the knobs. The Les Paul Personal has the mic jack. Both mic and guitar run through a stereo jack that requires a "Y" adapter to split the two to separate amps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitbox777 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Can someone educate me regarding low impedance signals and guitar effect pedals? When running a Les Paul Personal into a pedal board should the transformer be before or after the pedal board or do I just not understand signals/impedance and it doesn't matter? I'm thinking since other Low Impedance guitar models have the transformer built into the guitar then 'before the pedal board' is a workable approach. I've seen somewhere that it's best to have the transformer right before the amp to get the best affect. Seems like that's not possible if you've got a pedal board between the transformer and the amp. Do pedals know or care if a signal sent to them is low or high impedance? Does a pedal work on a low impedance signal the same way it does a high impedance signal? At the risk of being redundant I'll restate the question: I'm not sure if it matters if you send a low impedance signal thru a pedal board, have the signal affected by the pedals, and then the affected signal converted from low to high impedance just before going into the amp. Or if it's potentially better if you convert the low to high and have the high impedance signal affected by the pedals and then sent to the amp. I've messed around a little bit with both approaches and haven't noticed a significant difference in sound. But without having A/B'd the setup I'm not sure if I'm really remembering closely enough how they compare since I have to try one approach, quick switch the cords around and then try the other approach while trying to remember how the other approach sounded. I suppose I could try recording the two different approaches but haven't gotten that far yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 I would think having the transformer close to the Pedal Board would give you the best possible outcome for this scenario. Nothing I know of is designed specifically for Low Impedance Les Paul's other than the LP-12 amp. It's effects, (Tremolo, Vibrato & Reverb), are likely after the transformer in the amp circuit. Terry Kath used a Les Paul Professional for many of the early Chicago tunes. He used distortion. It would be interesting to know what his setup was like............. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 I would think having the transformer close to the Pedal Board would give you the best possible outcome for this scenario. Nothing I know of is designed specifically for Low Impedance Les Paul's other than the LP-12 amp. It's effects, (Tremolo, Vibrato & Reverb), are likely after the transformer in the amp circuit. Terry Kath used a Les Paul Professional for many of the early Chicago tunes. He used distortion. It would be interesting to know what his setup was like............. Hello. Rather interesting question. I have yet to find a proper solution for using any kinds of outboard effects in the Low-Z mode. Wherever I put the transformer (before or after the effect chain) the sound quality suffered. Connecting the guitar to the Low-Z guitar input of my Zoom R24 worked well, though. With it's internal effects, I can manipulate the sound as I want... But anyways, the Low-Z mode (in my understanding) is for achieving super clean tones. For the rest, I use the other output. Cheers... Bence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveg Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 I can't add much to what has already been written except to say that I used my LPR for around 30 years in Low Impedance Mode and took the following precautions. The Transformer is always as close as possible to the Input whether it is an Amplifier or a Pedal/Effects unit. The Lead out of the Guitar to the Transformer is of the highest quality and the lead from the Transformer to the Pedal/Effects Unit is as short as possible - typically 9 inches - a Mixer Patch Lead is great. The Lead from the Effects to the Amp should again only be as long as necessary - no longer. The sound I was trying to achieve was mainly "Clean and Bright". DG See Here: http://www.gould68.freeserve.co.uk/lprusers/lprusers.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted January 28, 2015 Author Share Posted January 28, 2015 Hello! Some additional info: "686. How do you make a low impedance pickup high impedance? You would need to use a special impedance matching transformer but are hard to design and still maintain good frequency characteristics. It is often desirable to use a preamplifier that contains a equalizer network to operate in a standard guitar amplifier. Normally low impedance pickups have low output when used with modern guitar amplifiers and Gibson working with Les Paul have come up with several models of low impedance instruments. I don’t believe they had great popularity but listen to Les Paul’s recordings and you can hear what they sound like when properly used. The pickup impedance for early instruments could be from 400 to 1000 Hz." - (http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/faq/seymours-q-a/676700/) This is great reading too (especially about the Ibanez copies): http://www.sustain-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/What-Are-Low-Impedance-Pickups-by-Helmuth-Lemme-SUSTAIN-Magazine-2.pdf Good info here too: https://innovationfascinations.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/a-sweeter-sounding-electric-guitar/ Cheers... Bence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveg Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 Some of you might have seen/read this already - I haven't got mine yet. It might explain more inside but it seems to me that it might be the original '54 prototype body, but highly customised and "tinkered with". The pickups are from a different era to the '54 version. The body seems to be original "arched top" wheras all of Les' "specials" were flat topped. DG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted February 5, 2015 Author Share Posted February 5, 2015 Hello Dave! I got the copy of this magazine. By 1976, after it got restored by Tom Doyle, the guitar received a pair of "variable custom-wound pickups by Les Paul and Wally Kamin" Controls are: Master volume, Ohms selector (Decade-box, I guess), Rotary phase switch, bass control, 0-1 Ouncer UTC transformer. There's also a photo of the guitar in it's previous state, with the big plastic cover removed exposing the concealed pickups underneath. Good article! Best wishes... Bence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 Some of you might have seen/read this already - I haven't got mine yet. It might explain more inside but it seems to me that it might be the original '54 prototype body, but highly customised and "tinkered with". The pickups are from a different era to the '54 version. The body seems to be original "arched top" wheras all of Les' "specials" were flat topped. DG I ordered a copy off of eBay, should arrive this week. Also................. I just pulled the lever on a new Les Paul Recording II, should also get here this week. I realize it won't be anything like the original, but we'll see what it can do. I bought a light one. It claimed to be only 8lbs, 6ozs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 That's great, George! Can't wait for a nice side-by-side comparison! ;) Cheers... Bence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 The Les Paul Recording II (Iridium) came today, I gave it a pretty good test drive, but have much more to do. The two guitars sounded more alike than I thought they would, since they really are nothing alike at all. The new guitar had a very clean sound in Low Impedance, with sustain that went well past the 20 second mark, due to the maple top?? I still like the feel of the neck of the 1973 better. The fret board seems overly light in color, it is suppose to be rosewood, I hope it is. My guitar only weighs 8lbs, 6ozs. I think it was one of the lighter ones available. Many are over 10lbs. It played well right out of the box. A three wire, Low Impedance chord was included with the guitar, the same chord I've been using with my Les Paul Signature. Being able to switch the pickups into single coil mode was different for this beast, I wasn't too noticeable in Low Impedance. Kind of odd without the Decade feature. I ran it into two amps at the same time & did need the Ground Lift feature & it did work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 Hello George! Congratulations! It's beautiful. Looking at the picture - where it's put next to an original -, I have to say, Gibson recaptured the aura of the instrument nicely. However, that's just the looks...so You have mixed emotions about it? Best wishes... Bence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 A few couple better photos........... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveg Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Thanks Grog - a sound comparison would be GREAT. Here is a little more about that '54 LP Custom(ised). DG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyfwiZCUv3s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 Hello Dave! Great video! Thank You for sharing! :) Cheers... Bence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 The results of the auction of the '54 Les Paul Custom............... http://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/1012/les-pauls-1954-black-beauty-goes-for-six-figures-at-auction/50927 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveg Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 I saw that Grog and in some ways I was surprised given its provenance. But on the other hand it had been severely "tinkered" with and had a lot of adverse publicity. I don't think the Guitar Player article did it any favours because of the glaring inaccuracies in the description they gave it. If it had been "un-tinkered" with and with that provenance, think what it might have acheived. Anyway, I didn't bid on it :) DG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grog Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Ever seen a LPR with gold hardware?? I haven't until now............... http://www.ebay.com/itm/1973-Gibson-Les-Paul-RECORDING-CUSTOM-Vintage-Electric-Guitar-RARE-GOLD-HARDWARE-/201300165310?pt=Guitar&hash=item2ede6cc2be Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveg Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Grog, If it is a Factory Original the P/Us could easily have been L5s PUs. The gold plated Personal used the black PUs with gold PU surrounds etc. One way or another they are probably L5s PUs. DG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.