I played an all original 1956 Les Paul Custom yesterday

Scott Powell

Blackmore Wannabe
The gentleman who does my guitar repair is very well known in my area and gets a great deal of High End repair orders. When i scheduled my appointment with him he told me to bring my amp as he had something i might like to see when he was doing my repairs

A client of his flips high end guitars and will send them to Tom to check for originality as well as set up.
It was LIGHT,maybe 6 pounds ,black,and Tom told me it had a one piece Mahogany body.

It was by FAR the best sounding guitar i have ever played,and thru my Marshall DSL it sounded like every 70's rock guitar tone i have loved. I was surprised at how quite the P-90's were,and even with some gain and pushing air the tone had a great deal of clarity,a very clean over drive.
If I had a spare $60,000 sitting around i;d pick one up!





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i had (back in the mid 70's) a '58 LP....yea.....there really IS a difference with the 50's guitars.....it's not all hype and jive. now i'm not sure they are worth what is being asked for them these days.....but they ARE nice. some are dogs too.......but not as many as today's guitars.
 
and something else that's not hype and jive....not necessarily 50's....but real hand wired, point to point tube amps actually DO sound a lot better than tube amps with circuit boards in them.....maybe it's gauge of wire in the point to point versus the print on the board.....i don't know....but p.t.p. wired amps definitely have more going on.
 
I got to check out a 52. The tailpiece sucked but it sounded awesome and it was light. Maybe 7.5 pounds or so.

Pretty awesome experience to play an old one like that.
 
VERY cool! P90s are great rock pickups - especially in a guitar of that caliber. Did it have the staple version in the neck position?
 
I got to play an early 50s Fender Broadcaster once. It did have a replacement bridge on it. And yeah....it was a really special guitar. Very cool that you got to play one of those.
 
back when i had a side job as a guitar/bass tech in one of the biggest music stores in town (80's-90's) one of the guys i worked with was a bit of a collector...not of perfect stuff, but stuff that might have had some wear or were refin'd......anyway......he came strolling in near closing time and goes..."c'mere....you GOT to play this".....he pulls a fiesta red strat out of a gig back.....1957.....needed a fret job.....but man the QUACK was off the charts. very nice and wonderful neck....he said "don't even ask....it ain't for sale.":grin:
 
i'm glad you had a chance to play that '56 Custom. i'd love a chance to play a nice example of a 50s Custom. i've been somewhat fortunate over the years to have played and even owned some older guitars that really were amazing. i haven't played any that i'd consider duds, though i have no doubt there are some of them out there.
 
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