The folks over at Gibson have just released a 1952 inspired Les Paul Tribute model guitar. To cash in on Les Pauls’ passing Gibson engineers went right to work to design this guitar the way the man himself wanted it nearly 60 years ago. Never before was a Les Paul model designed to his exact original specs.
Some features of this Les Paul 1952 Tribute model include: two-piece maple top on a two-piece mahogany body with mahogany neck, nitrocellulose lacquer finish, classic thick 50’s neck profile, chrome truss rod cover, rosewood fingerboard (is it legal rosewood?) with 12″ radius and 22 frets, Corian nut, dual P-90 pickups, vintage tuning keys, aluminum strap buttons and stamped “Prototype” into the back of each headstock. One cool feature that players will really appreciate is the bridge that was designed and patented by Les because of a disagreement with Gibson engineers back in the day. It seems that Gibso wanted the strings to wrap under the bridge but Les (being the player that he was) wanted the strings to wrap over the bridge so he could palm muts the strings. Gibson did not agree so that’s when Les took matters into his own hands and desinged and patented one himself. This special bridge is fitted on this guitar. A round of applause for the Gibson designers because the “wrap under” bridge is difficult to play.
Tagged at $5581.00 and limited to 564 guitars (6 for each year Les was alive) these will sure to be collectors items. Each guitar comes with a COA and hardshell case.
Click here to visit Gibson Guitars for more details.