A 1968 Les Paul Standard GoldTop Converted by Tom Murphy to a '58 Burst…

1968 Gibson Les Paul Standard - Tom Murphy '58 Conversion

This unique guitar started out as a first generation 1968 Les Paul Standard GoldTop with two P-90 pickups. Around ten years ago it underwent a full conversion to a 1958 specification guitar. The conversion was carried out by the great Gibson expert luthier Tom Murphy. Tom removed the P-90 pickups and replaced them with a pair of Tom Holmes H450 and H455 humbuckers. He also re-fretted the guitar with the correct gauge (.100 inch) fretwire and replaced the original tuners. He has re-finished the guitar (except for the face of the headstock) to the correct cherry mahogany of 1958 - which he has then perfectly 'aged'. He 'stripped' the gold paint from the top exposing the two -piece figured maple top which he has aged to a wonderful shade of 'Iced Tea'. Murphy has also re-shaped the cream plastic binding in the body cutaway to the correct 1958 thickness. This unique Les Paul Standard weighs 9.80 lbs. and has a fat nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Single-bound one-piece mahogany body with carved maple top, one-piece mahogany neck with a wonderful medium profile rising gently from 0.85 behind the first fret to 1.03 inches at the twelfth fret. Bound rosewood fretboard with 22 medium frets and inlaid pearl crown position markers. 'Small' headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Model" silkscreened in gold. Two layer (black on white) truss-rod cover secured by two screws. 1958 style serial number "8 6754" inked-on in black on the back of the headstock (as usual for Tom Murphy conversions). Individual Grover Deluxe "135N" tuners with single-ring Keystone plastic buttons. Two Tom Holmes H450 and H455 humbuckers with cream plastic rings and outputs of 7.41k and 8.11k. Single-layer (converted) cream plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way pickup selector switch on upper bass bout. The potentiometers are stamped "137 6833" (CTS August 1968). Two original Sprague "black beauty" tone capacitors. Four original ca. 1958 Gold plastic bell-shape "Bell" knobs. Original ca. 1958 Gibson ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic non-retainer bridge with metal saddles and original separate light alloy stud tailpiece. The original brown plastic control cavity and switch cavity covers have been replaced with later custom-made black plastic reproductions. This guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition - it has been beautifully and skillfully aged by Tom Murphy and there is a small area of wear (through to the wood) on the back. The guitar plays like a dream and sounds quite amazing. Housed in a late eighties Gibson brown hardshell case with purple plush lining (9.00).

Tom Holmes has built guitars for Bo Diddley, Lenny Breau, Billy Gibbons, Albert King and many others. For the last twenty years he has become a legend for jewel-like PAF-style humbucking pickups, which he builds in his shop in Joelton, Tennessee. His pickups are amongst the very best faithful late fifties and early sixties PAF reproductions. There is an excellent article in The Tone Quest report (January 2009/Vol. 10 No. 3) which features the humbuckers of Tom Holmes - well worth a read… http://www.tonequest.com/files/TQRJan09_proof.pdf