As a tribute to the legendary 1959 Les Paul model, the Gibson Custom Shop, in collaboration with the ageing specialists at Murphy Lab, offers a highly accomplished recreation of the archetype. From the turned wood selection to the hand-wired electronics to the nature of the finish and hardware, the Gibson 1959 Les Paul Standard Slow Iced Tea Fade Heavy Aged truly offers everything a classic '59 Les Paul should.
The basis of the Gibson 1959 Les Paul Standard is its basic construction of selected tonewoods, as they were already used in the late fifties. Accordingly, the body is made of a solid piece of mahogany and finished with a two-piece curly maple top with a fancy flame. Of course, in the recipe of a good Fifties, Les Paul may not be missing the long neck tenon of the mahogany neck glued up to under the neck pickup.
For appropriate sounds of the legendary PAF humbucker, Gibson relies on successful replicas of the coveted dual coils with two Custom Bucker humbuckers. Hand-wound in the Gibson Custom Shop, the pickups feature Alnico III magnets for a warm and vocal tone character and have non-waxed coils, clearly preserving the treble content in the signal. The electronics wiring is also completely hand-wired and holds original components of the golden LP era with CTS potentiometers for volume and tone and oil paper capacitors.
Created by ageing legend Tom Murphy, the Murphy Lab is a series of experts who analyze in detail the finish and ageing process of the hardware of original instruments and authentically recreate it in the 1959 Les Paul Standard Heavy