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| Gibson 1959 Les Paul Standard | ||
The Gibson 1959 Les Paul is a reissue of the LP from years ago. This is a VOS reissue which are meant to be historically accurate and having period correct neck profiles, hardware and electronics. The original gold tops were discontinued in 1958 and replaced with a cherry sunburst LP. At this time they added the word ‘Standard’ to the les Paul name. So that’s why the ’58 and ’59 LPs have the word Standard in their title. In 1959 the LPs of the time used an instable red pigment which faded leaving only a hint of red. This is one of the dead giveaways that the guitar is an original 58 or 59 LP. What Gibson has done in this re-issue is to manufacture it under the newer VOS guidelines. VOS means ‘Vintage Original Spec’ which started in 2006. The body of the guitar is made of a single piece of Mahogany with a carved figured maple top. There is a single ply cream binding on the top side of body. The finish is 100% nitro cellulose lacquer (just like the original) and is available in Faded Tobacco, Ice Tea, and Washed Cherry. It uses an ABR-1 bridge with an aluminum stopbar tailpiece. The single piece 24.7 5 inch scale length Mahogany neck has 22 Jumbo Frets on it. This is different from the original which didn’t use the jumbo frets. The neck has the original-style truss rod with a long tenon where it connects to the body all the way up to the neck pickup. The neck is joined at the 16th fret with the neck’s tenon extending into the body for great contact. This leads to a greater amount of contact area between the neck and body which gives the guitar more tone and sustain. The neck profile is same as that used in 1959 model. The fretboard is rosewood with acrylic trapezoid inlays. It originally had mother of pearl if I’m not mistaken but I think Gibson knows better. The Headstock has both the Les Paul decal and truss rod cover. The tuners are Vintage tulip type. The original tuners where Kluson Deluxe machineheads with plastic keystone buttons. The electronics are made using higher quality parts that where found at the time. These include the CTS potentiometers and bumble bee capacitors. The capacitors are of higher quality and don’t dry-up nearly as fast as cheaper capacitors. They are also more accurate in their specification. They are called bumble bee because of the color bands around the caps look like that of a bumble bee. The color bands tell the electrician what the capacitor’s value is and the amount of variation possible between capacitors. The CTS pots are of military grade and don’t wear out a fast or get ‘dirty’ sounding as often as other pots. They are also more accurate in there resistance as you turn the pot. This is important for quality control and ultimately the sound of the guitar. The guitar has two volume and two tone controls, one for each pickup. The pickups are selected via a 3-way pickup selector. The pickups are reproductions of the PAF (Patent Applied For) Humbuckers which first appeared in mid 1957 and they got the patent in 1959. They put a small decal on the bottom of the pickup with the words ‘patent applied for’ on it. They continued to use this decal until mid 1962 even though they received the patent in 1959. They had been working on the Humbucker since 1954 and applied for the patent in mid 1955. This reissue uses Burstbucker’s at the neck and bridge positions. Features
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