As most of you have probably noticed on here, I've been after a Gibson Les Paul Custom for a while. It's been thee 'holy grail' guitar ever since I started playing guitar and seeing my teachers Black Beauty. Well, earlier this week I finally made it happen, but that wasn't without picking up another couple of Gibson's on the way.
#1 - Gibson SG Special 1971 Walnut
It was quite lucky how I stumbled upon this.. I was searching the NZ guitar groups on Facebook for Les Paul Customs. I noticed a guy had a 70's LPC for sale quite a few months back but I thought what the hell, I'll see if it's still available. It wasn't, however he asked me if I'd be interested in an early 70's SG Special. Damn right I would!
It's had a professional neck repair done back in 80's (confirmed by my local luthier as an excellent job), some binding pieced back together, original bridge swapped in favour of a hardtail (preferable for me), schaller tuners added, and the fretboard was as dry as the Sahara, but... it looked in great condition overall and had the original pickups, pots/electronics and the original case.
A whole load of fretdoctor, new strings and a setup later and it plays utterly awesome and sounds amazing! I wasn't sold on the comfort of an SG at first but I've quickly grown to love this guitar. It's the one I find myself reaching for the most.
#2 - Gibson Les Paul Special Double Cutaway Custom Shop 2006 TV White
I bought this locally from Dharmajester. At the time I had my 60's Tribute Les Paul and I went round to his place with it so I could get his thoughts on how it played (I was contemplating keeping it at the time). He always has nice guitars so I asked him what Gibson's he currently had. He brought out 2 Les Paul Special Custom Shop's, a red one and a white one. I tried the red one first, it was nice and all but the neck was way too chunky for me. Next came out the white one. Man was I in love with it before I'd even picked it up, It looked amazing! The neck was noticeably smaller than the red one and it played fantastic. I left that afternoon with the thing constantly on my mind.
Stephen had said the white one gave his hand a bit of trouble so I'd tried my luck to see if he'd sell it. I wasn't even in the market for a Special at this point, I was still all about the Les Paul Custom but I knew I just had to have this thing. After waiting patiently to see if he'd let it go, and staring at what seemed like every possible photo of this guitar on the internet, I went over to his again and it was mine.
#3 - Gibson Les Paul Custom 2001 Ebony Yamano
After searching for months for a nice example of a Les Paul Custom, this came to me on Thursday. Exhausting all avenues to try and find a Les Paul Custom, I had posted some wanted ad's about a month ago on the NZ guitar groups on Facebook. Nothing came about for weeks until I had a guy who worked in one of the Auckland Rockshop stores contact me saying he had a 2001 Les Paul Custom and in no better color than Ebony! I nervously waited for photos to check out it's condition and it turns out it was in fantastic condition all things considered. Some very minor marks and some buckle rash but nothing you could really complain about for an 18 year old guitar.
He was asking way too much for it initially but after a week of negotiating we landed on a figure we were both happy with and the deal was done. He had it sent down to the Dunedin Rockshop on Monday to arrive on Wednesday but I had to agonizingly wait until Thursday for it to get there. Headed over there Thursday afternoon and all the staff in there were more excited than me to open it up, It was quite funny actually. I spent the rest of Thursday cleaning and setting it up and oh my god, the feel, play ability and tone of this thing is just unreal.
Not having initially payed attention to what 'case candy' might have been in the case compartment, I had a look and found some Yamano Music Gibson manuals and other Japanese documents, as well as the silica gel pads in there that were in Japanese too. I contacted the guy I bought it from who hadn't advertised it as a Yamano (I'm not even sure he's aware what it is) and he put me in touch with the original owner as I wanted to confirm where exactly it had come from. He did confirm that he'd originally imported from Yamano Music in Japan. I'd heard of Gibson Yamano reputation so it all made sense as to why this guitar just feels so bloody good! I honestly don't think I could have found myself a better Les Paul Custom and the wait clearly paid off in the end.
