1979 LP Odd Duck Walnut Paul

[Mayuiers]

Mayuiers,
I happen to be going thru Portland on Monday, 2-22-16 about midday, would you care to check it out in person? I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks to all for the input.

Beach,

I'd love to meet up and check out your guitar, but I'll be out of town for the majority of next week. When I'm not injecting useless messages on this site I'm an engineer and project manager for a large federal agency.

How does your guitar sound and play?

It certainly is an interesting beast... yet kind of cool. Whether it ends up being a prototype, a modified Gibson something-or-another, or a luthier made instrument, it's a nice variance on what we normally see.

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Mayuiers]

After double checking the photos... are you sure the guitar is made of walnut? It looks to me like it is mahogany.

 

[BeachAxess]

Beach,

I'd love to meet up and check out your guitar, but I'll be out of town for the majority of next week. When I'm not injecting useless messages on this site I'm an engineer and project manager for a large federal agency.

How does your guitar sound and play?

It certainly is an interesting beast... yet kind of cool. Whether it ends up being a prototype, a modified Gibson something-or-another, or a luthier made instrument, it's a nice variance on what we normally see.

Thanks for sharing!!

Mayuiers,

Maybe when you take a break and hit the beach.

The guitar sounds and plays great, it has been well played before it came to me, neck is straight with low action, no buzz. Frets worn but not too much, check the Gibson nibs, all intact. Belly cut on the back has the finish worn off in just the right spot.

From the back it is all "The Paul", from the front the binding makes you wonder tho the control layout, T=Tops etc are "The Paul" without the bevel.

I'm pretty sure it's walnut looking at the grain on the sides of the body and the neck. The unfinished wood in the routs also. The binding also looks age appropriate. This has an Ebony fretboard.

Other than the obvious non-production status, this appears Gibson made. I would like to see another one or have the "Not Gibson" pointed out to me, so far I've got to think legit.

Thanks for your interest and help.

Beach

 

[ColdCobra]

Have you contacted Gibson?

 

[BeachAxess]

Have you contacted Gibson?

ColdCobra,

I have not, thinking this forum would be a great start, the replies here have shown me what might be important to identify this guitar. I thought someone might have seen one like it, or know something more, or there might be another one like it somewhere, so far not yet.

I'll contact Gibson with the info and pics on Tuesday and see what they say.

I have checked quite a few Google entries and found nothing useful.

Thanks for your interest.

Beach

 

[moreles]

Hope I'm wrong, and easily could be since I'm not fully versed on Gibson production standards from this time period. But it looks like a non-Gibson that has been made to look like a Gibson -- headstock overlay, maybe? The control routing and PU looks way off, and as I mentioned before, the heel contour, at least in the pics, looks off as well. Hope I'm wrong.

 

[BeachAxess]

Update:

I just spoke with Terry at Gibson about this guitar, he said they did indeed make this guitar, it is legit. The binding is something they did and is original, as is the black headstock overlay. (The TRC does not belong).

Gibson will authenticate it for me thru e-mail and I will post that when I receive it.

Thanks for all your replies.

 

[HardCore Troubadour]

this is going to be good......I hope he also gives you an idea of production numbers and the model name.

 

[dixiethedog]

What an interesting thread,and a very interesting guitar.
I was lucky to have a Gibson The Paul as my first Gibson way back in about 1979-80 and it was a great guitar,but being young and impressionable, it not being a real LP in appearance didnt work for me. So I part exchanged The Paul and bought an LP custom and then a Gibson LP Heritage std 80 (serial 2150).
The Paul was a much better guitar than my Heritage 80. Maybe my Heritage was a Friday afternoon built guitar, so for what ever reason I never really took to it.
Id love another "The Paul" though.
To think when they were new they were listed at about £299 here in the UK. Walnut.....ebony....T-top's.... Bargain's.
Have lot's of fun and enjoy your guitar!

 

[BeachAxess]

For anyone interested, here is the e-mail I sent Gibson today:

Gibson,

I spoke with Terry at your company today about this guitar, he suggested I send you this information to receive your authentication. This guitar seems based on the “The Paul” with some significant differences.

1979 Les Paul in Walnut with 7-layer top of body binding, 5-layer headstock binding, single layer neck binding with fret end nibs and Dot markers on an Ebony fretboard. “Belly Cut” bevel on the back like “The Paul”.

Serial Number: ________

Volume Pots: 70-028; 1377836

Tone Pots: 70-035; 1377836

T-Top pickups, Neck pickup on the bottom: “PAT NO 2,737,842”

All of the solder points are original and undisturbed.

I know the truss rod cover is not correct.

It plays very nice with low action and straight neck.

Thank you for taking the time to help me authenticate this guitar. Any additional information would be great to have.

Sent with the pics from my first few posts on this forum. I'll share their reply , soon I hope.

 

[BeachAxess]

Gibson has replied, here it is:

Hi Art,


Thank you for sending us the photos of your instrument. This does appear to be an authentic Gibson from 1979, however it is not listed on the 1979 pricelist or the 1979 brochure of instruments.

Although the overall “look” of the instrument tends to lean toward this being a “The Paul” model, it does have some customized features including the binding on the instrument and the inlay on the headstock.

Also, the truss rod cover was probably replaced. These features indicate it was probably either a specially ordered instrument or a very limited run from 1979. Hope that helps.


Best Regards,

Terry

Gibson Customer Service
1-800-4GIBSON

 

[HardCore Troubadour]

so, what that says is he really doesn't know anything either.

No Terry, that does not help.

They didn't put limited run's on the pricelist?

I would think employee guitar before special order.

 

[BeachAxess]

For those of you interested, some very helpful folks on the Les Paul Forum have identified this as a very limited run of up-market The Paul.

An interesting story and pics of another one are in the Sunburst/Gibson Pub.

1979 Les Paul in Walnut - Have you seen one like it?

Mystery solved, thanks to all . . .

 

[dspelman]

so, what that says is he really doesn't know anything either.

No Terry, that does not help.

They didn't put limited run's on the pricelist?

I would think employee guitar before special order.

It's not unusual to find limited run guitars that never appeared on any catalog or pricelist, particularly in the late '70's/early '80's. The layout of the controls suggests The Paul, but the body is definitely different from the standard The Paul (as is, of course, the binding).

 

[Kris Ford]

For those of you interested, some very helpful folks on the Les Paul Forum have identified this as a very limited run of up-market The Paul.

An interesting story and pics of another one are in the Sunburst/Gibson Pub.

1979 Les Paul in Walnut - Have you seen one like it?

Mystery solved, thanks to all . . .

My former ('77-90) Gibson employee bro nailed it, and even HAS ONE.
"The Paul SPECIAL" is the official name of this VERY limited run.

 

[HardCore Troubadour]

learn something new everyday......I had never ever seen anything close.

thanks for sharing as we say in the program.

 

[Pete M]

Cool