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Catch of the Day: 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom

1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom

The Les Paul Custom is not exactly a forgotten guitar but it sure doesn’t get the love it deserves from the guitar world at large. The Custom was first introduced in 1953 as an upgraded version of the Les Paul Model, which is what the Goldtop Standard was known as before 1958. The first version of the Custom had a black finish, which Les Paul himself requested because he wanted an elegant guitar that “looked like a tuxedo.” Other upgrades included an ebony fretboard with square pearl inlays; fancy binding on the top, back, neck and headstock; and gold plated hardware. The early version also had a P-90 pickup in the bridge position and the new Alnico V pickup with rectangular pole pieces in the neck position. And unlike the Les Paul Model, the Custom didn’t have a maple top with a mahogany back but was instead made from solid mahogany, which I suspect is the reason that many players tend to dismiss it. For better or worse, to many players a Les Paul should have a maple top, preferably with a nice sunburst and lots of figure.

In 1957 Gibson changed the Custom, dropping the two single coil pickups in favor of the newly introduced humbuckers. Almost all of these Les Paul Customs were made with three pickups, although a very tiny number were made with two pickups. Today’s Catch was made in 1960 and it is in excellent original condition. The gold plating is worn, which shows that it has been played quite a bit over the years but the finish bears only a few minor nicks and dings, which suggests the previous owners took good care of this guitar. (If you look carefully at the nick in the top you can see the mahogany peeking through.) I’ve played a couple of these over the years and they were really good sounding guitars. To my ears, they were a little darker sounding than a maple-topped Standard but they had loads of sustain and a sweet sounding treble.

The one problem with the three pickup Custom is that Gibson opted to use a three-way pickup switch, which activated a single neck pickup, the middle and bridge pickup together or the single bridge pickup. This didn’t really add a much more tonal variation than you got with a Les Paul Standard, but as all three pickups in this guitar are PAFs, that fact can perhaps be overlooked. This Les Paul Custom is priced at $59,900, which is a huge pile of cash, but it is about half of what a 1960 Les Paul Standard would sell for, so in a weird way it is a bargain. If you’d like to add this guitar to your collection, just get in touch with the fine folks at Carter Vintage Guitars.