Gibson Custom Shop 'True Historic' 54 Les Paul Custom

2015 Gibson Les Paul Custom 1954 True Historic

This superb Gibson Custom Shop 'True Historic' Limited Edition guitar weighs just 9.20 lbs., which is exactly the same weight as an all original 1957 Les Paul Custom that we recently sold. Multi-bound solid mahogany body. One-piece mahogany neck with a nice, fat nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches, a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches, and a wonderful thick profile. Ebony fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl block position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and five-piece pearl split-diamond inlay. "Les Paul Custom" on truss-rod cover. Serial number "4 5068" inked-on in white on the back of the headstock. The body has seven-ply binding on the top and five-ply binding on the back, the headstock has five-ply binding, and the fretboard is single bound. Individual Kluson Super tuners with tulip-shaped metal buttons. One Seymour Duncan Alnico pickup in the neck position with a very strong output of 8.72k and one Seymour Duncan P-90 pickup in the bridge position, also with a very strong output of 9.33k. Each pickup with a black plastic cover. Five-layer (black over white) plastic pickguard secured to body with a single bracket and a top screw. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Special Gibson Custom Shop 'True Historic' metal switch cover secured by three screws. Black plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. ABR-1 style non-retainer Tune-O-Matic bridge with metal saddles and separate stud tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated. This guitar is in new and unused (9.50) condition and was specially upgraded with two Seymour Duncan (Alnico Staple and P-90) pickups (the original Gibson pickups are in the case pocket). Housed in the original Gibson five-latch shaped brown hardshell case with pink plush lining (9.50). Complete with the Gibson Custom Shop 'True Historic' Certificate of Authenticity, spare black plastic switch cover, various hang tags and polishing cloth.

"In a move designed to widen the market still further for solidbody guitars, Gibson issued two new Les Paul models in 1954, the Custom and the Junior... The two-pickup Custom looked classy with its all-black finish, multiple binding, block-shaped position markers in an ebony fingerboard, and gold-plated hardware, and was indeed more expensive than the gold-top. Paul said that he chose the black colour for the Custom. 'When you're on stage with a black tuxedo and a black guitar, the people can see your hands move with a spotlight on them. They'll see your hands flying.' The Custom had an all-mahogany body, as favoured by Les Paul himself, rather than the maple/mahogany mix of the gold-top, giving the new guitar a rather mellower tone...The Les Paul Custom was promoted in Gibson catalogues as 'the fretless wonder' because of its use of very low, flat fretwire, different to the wire used on other Les Paul at the time and favoured by some players for the way it helped them play more speedily...The September 1954 pricelist showed the Les Paul Custom at $325 and the Les Paul Junior at $99.50. The gold-top meanwhile had sneaked up to $225" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 25). The Custom was the first Les Paul model to receive the company's Tune-O-Matic bridge, used in conjunction with a separate bar-shaped tailpiece, which offered for the first on Gibsons the opportunity to individually adjust the length of each string, thus improving tuning accuracy.