Gibson Custom Murphy Lab 1959 Les Paul Standard | BOTB Page 86 - Heavy Aged

The Gibson Custom Shop team make some of the most historically accurate, inspiring, and best playing guitars on the market today. They’ve spent decades refining their craft and are true master luthiers. Within Gibson Custom, there’s a special division called “The Murphy Lab”. This division is dedicated to ageing instruments so they look and feel exactly like vintage golden-era guitars. The Murphy Lab team is headed up by legendary Gibson employee Tom Murphy, who has crafted some of the best-looking relics we’ve ever seen.

This particular Les Paul is inspired by a genuine ’59 Les Paul featured on page 86 of the book The Beauty of the Burst. The book documents and celebrates some of the finest vintage golden-era Bursts and highlights the unique colours, figuring, and wear patterns that make each instrument special. One of the most distinctive features of the original guitar is a unique section of unfaded finish at the bottom of the body. At some point in its life, the guitar was fitted with an aftermarket Bigsby vibrato, which covered part of the finish and protected it from years of sunlight exposure. As a result, that section retained its original colour while the surrounding finish faded over time. The Murphy Lab team have done a fantastic job recreating this detail, helping capture the character and history of the original instrument.

This Les Paul features a mahogany body alongside a beautiful figured maple top. We have a very strong relationship with the Gibson Custom Shop team, so we regularly fly out to the factory to personally select wood for use on our guitars. The nitrocellulose finish has been heavily aged by the Murphy Lab team, it really does look and feel just like a vintage ’59 Les Paul. It’s got a nice broken in feel, so you can take this one out to a gig or hit the studio right away!

The solid Mahogany neck is topped with a crisp Indian Rosewood fingerboard with classic Gibson Trapezoid inlays, this guitar looks every bit the real deal. With a 24.75" scale length, 12" radius, 1.687" nut width and medium jumbo frets, it retains that classic Les Paul feel. The ABR-1 bridge and light weight stopbar offer an authentic vintage vibe.

The defining feature of the Gibson Custom '59 Les Paul is the custom wound Gibson Custom Bucker Alnico 3 pickups. According to Gibson these are some of the most historically accurate PAF clones on the market, with an ultra-rich harmonic quality; it's as close as you can get to the classic Les Paul tone. These pickups also feature exposed double cream bobbins, which gives this guitar a really cool look and vibe!