"Aged to Perfection"

This 12 3/4-inch Les Paul Aged Reissue weighs 8.30 lbs. and has a very fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany back and Figured maple top with single-ply cream binding, solid mahogany back, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 frets and inlaid pearl trapezoid position markers. Inlaid pearl "Gibson" headstock logo. Individual Kluson Deluxe tuners with single-ring Keystone tulip-shaped buttons. Two humbucker pickups with cream-colored plastic surrounds and outputs of 7.52k and 7.95k. Cream-colored plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Gold-plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge and separate stud tailpiece. All hardware nickel-plated. This guitar is in near mint condition and is the closest thing you can get to an original 1959 Les Paul Standard (you can hardly tell the difference!). Housed in its original Gibson hardshell case with purple plush lining (9.50).

This Les Paul Aged Reissue was made in 2003 by "Reissue Guru" Tom Murphy (with his certificate) of old Gibson parts. He has aged this guitar twice -- in addition to the body checking, etc., he has put on an original old set of tuners, pickup covers, stud tailpiece, and possibly the ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge.

"Tom Murphy became an important person within the team that developed the [Les Paul] Reissues. He'd been at Gibson since 1989, and a few years later moved from the finish repair department to the Custom area. As a player, he'd been attracted by several of Gibson's attempts to recapture the holy grail over the years...Once at Gibson, Murphy began to appreciate the practical considerations necessary to produce a good, acceptable reissue...Gibson people set to work in an attempt to replicate more closely than ever the magic of an original sunburst Standard...The 'new' Reissue would have more accurate body carving, the smaller-size vintage-style headstock, a re-tooled fat neck profile, holly veneer for the headstock face with a silkscreened logo, the most attractive figured maple for the top, a slight reduction in neck pitch, proper routing of the control cavity, and early-style Tune-o-matic bridge, and the reinstatement of a longer, wider neck tenon or 'tongue' at the neck/'body joint. 'It was a matter of retrieving all those things,' said Murphy. 'It was almost as if they'd been thrown out and scattered across the plant floor, swept under a table. There were here...somewhere. I won't take credit for designing the 59 Les Paul,' Murphy smiled. 'That was done when I was nine years old. But I will take credit in unearthing and finding some of these old key things'" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson® Les Paul, pp. 100-101).

"Tom Murphy developed his ability to make a repaired and/or restored guitar 'look right' by using ageing techniques...He prefers to call it a 'broken-in' feel rather than an aged look. The first to benefit was the Standard 59 Reissue Aged model, which officially started life as part of the Custom Shop line in 1999. The paint colours were made to appear faded, the nickel parts on the instrument such as the pickup covers were realistically tarnished, the lacquer 'skin' was cracked and effectively dulled. Remarkably, the guitar really did look old and worn..Gibson aimed to recreate the almost indefinable allure of a vintage guitar but in a new instrument -- and at a stiff price, of course. The Aged 59 at present [2002] lists at $10,155, about $3250 more than the regular Reissue...Murphy said that the Aged Reissues profit from a combination of techniques that he arrived at to simulate wear on small areas of the guitar" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson® Les Paul, p. 121).