OK, so you’re serious about your music. You’ve got the Strat, the Tele, the Les Paul Standard, maybe an SG, possibly a Gretsch twang machine for those weekend gigs that pay the bills… but a Les Paul Custom – that’s just a dressed-up Standard, isn’t it? BZZZT. A Custom is just a dressed-up Standard in much the same way that a 747 is just a hang glider with seats.
Gold standard
In 1954, Gibson’s new top-of-the-range model, the Les Paul Custom, featured a stunning innovation that is still the gold standard today – the revolutionary Tune-o-matic bridge. Personally designed by Gibson president, Ted McCarty, the Tune-o-matic ABR bridge instantly gave the Custom an edge over everything else on the market, with its unique ability to adjust both intonation and action. The next big change for the Custom came in 1957, when the model’s previous P-90s were replaced by Seth Lover’s game-changing new whiz-bang humbuckers!
Hotter PAFs
Originally constructed with an all Mahogany body, the Custom later adopted the LP Standard’s combination of Mahogany back and carved Maple top, which, in combination with the model’s Ebony fingerboard, was seen to add a touch more high-end snap in the tone department. Originally fired by the humbuckers now known as PAFs, as music styles have changed the pickups have been tweaked several times over the years, with this awesome 1979 model boasting a killer set of original T-tops, (slightly hotter PAFs), which really push that legendary fifties tone right to the front of your stage. [NOTE: Just Guitars Australia accepts no responsibility for loss of life to kittens and small children through use of the bridge pickup at high volume in confined spaces]
Effortless
If you’ve previously had to rely on separate guitars for warm, ballsy, piecing high end and clearly defined string-to-string note definition, believe it or not, this one machine delivers the lot! And, as a bonus, a great neck carve – more like a modern-C profile at the nut, fattening only slightly as you approach the body – that makes it all seem completely effortless.
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM >> And it’s a lefty. Of the 600 Black Beauties completed in 1979, just 171 were lefties. A few will have fallen along the way, but it wasn’t a big number to start with, and allowing that the majority of them were probably owned in the US, they aren’t exactly falling out of the eucalypts.
Other deets...
Ebony board, with genuine MOP inlays
Gold hardware
Rock solid three-piece Maple neck, (last of the neck volutes)
Serial number September 14, 1978
Pickups dated May 15, 1979
Pots dated late July, 1978
Original Gibson “chainsaw” hard case
Condition
Condition is Excellent+, with far less playwear than you’d expect after almost half a century. A scattering of little dinglets, a scratch high up on the back, the usual wear of the gold plating on the metal parts, plus the back and back of the neck were refinished many years ago, almost certainly by Gibson in Nashville.
Free courier delivery
This life changing guitar comes with our famous FREE COURIER DELIVERY to any address in Australia. ($100 airfreight to New Zealand, and $175 to the US, Canada, UK and mainstream European countries)
Weight: 10lb 15.3oz / 4.96kg
Just Guitars
