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The Gibson Les Paul Custom is a higher end variation of the Gibson Les Paul guitar. It was developed in 1953 after Gibson had introduced the Les Paul model in 1952. ==History== The Gibson Les Paul was introduced in 1952, and was originally made with a mahogany body and a 1" thick maple cap, mahogany neck with rosewood fret board and two P-90 pickups. The guitar was only available in a gold finish. In late 1953, a more luxurious version was introduced, most probably on specific request by Les Paul himself, as he wanted a more luxurious and classy looking guitar. He requested a black guitar as he wanted it to "look like a tuxedo". Nicknamed the Black Beauty, the guitar had a mahogany body and neck, ebony fret board, and mother of pearl block markers inlays in the fret board. The "Split Diamond" inlay on the headstock was taken from the carved archtop Super 400,〔 which was the top of the Gibson line. The pickups were a P-90 in the bridge position and an Alnico V pickup, newly designed by Seth Lover, in the neck position. The frets are low and flat, as opposed to the usual medium jumbo frets found on other Les Paul customs, and the guitar soon was given the nickname "The Fretless Wonder". The 1954 Les Paul Custom also saw the introduction of Gibson's new bridge, the ABR-1. The new Custom also shipped with a different case from the Standard, using a black and gold case instead of the brown and pink case that was the top-of-the-line case for the Les Paul Standard models. This was to be the case until the Custom was replaced and discontinued (though a similar black case was used with the LP/SG Custom models). In mid-1957, Gibson began to equip the Les Paul Custom with the new PAF (Patent Applied For) pickup designed by Seth Lover. Most Customs have three PAFs, though there are a small number that have the traditional two-pickup configuration. By 1958, Gibson had replaced the Kluson tuners with Grover Rotomatics. It is this configuration that remained until the guitar was discontinued in 1960, replaced by the new double cutaway body Les Paul model. There are a small number of 1961 Les Paul Customs that were made with the single cutaway body before the transition to the new, SG-style body was complete. The Les Paul Custom remained a double cutaway model until 1963, when Les Paul's endorsement with Gibson ended, and the guitar was subsequently renamed the SG Custom. In 1968, Gibson reintroduced the Les Paul Custom as a two pickup model. The headstock angle was changed from 17 degrees to 14, a wider headstock and a maple top (in lieu of the original 1953-1961 mahogany top construction). In 1969, Norlin had acquired Gibson, and the Les Paul Custom saw many changes between 1969 and 2004. The mahogany neck was replaced with a three-piece maple neck in 1975 (though some mahogany ones were still made)with this change lasting till around 1982, and the solid mahogany body was replaced with a "pancake" body in late 1969, where a small strip of maple resides between two thicker pieces of mahogany. This would last until 1977. In 1970, a "Made in USA" stamp was added to the back of the headstock, and a volute was added to help strengthen the headstock. In 1974, Gibson released the 20th anniversary Les Paul Custom in a white, black, cherry sunburst and honey sunburst finish (at least these four colors were made) with "20th Anniversary" engraved on the 15th fret block inlay. By 1976, the new Nashville bridge begins to replace the ABR-1. In 1977, the pancake body was replaced by the traditional solid mahogany body, though the top was still maple, as was the neck. It was around this time that the current serial number system appears as well. Starting in 1975, Gibson made a number of Customs with maple fingerboards, instead of the typical ebony (this was discontinued by the early 1980s). In 1981, the volute is phased out. In 1984, Gibson closed the Kalamazoo plant, and all production was moved to Nashville. In 1986, Norlin sold Gibson to a group of investors led by Henry Juszkiewicz. The Les Paul Custom specs by the end of the 1980s: * Smaller headstock * Mahogany neck * Mahogany body * Maple top * Ebony fingerboard * Gold hardware * 2 humbucking pickups * Nashville bridge Gibson has been using the 490R/498T pickups in the Custom since the 1990s, and these are still standard spec on the regular production model. Specific production years The Gibson guitars in from 2000-2003 were specially made on the requirements of the client on what kind of wood on the fret board,types of wood for neck and body, type of hardware and some models were also rounded of deeply on the request for specific number of coil turns in the pickups as well. Type of logo designs and hard cases were also manufactured on the request of the customer. these special custom series came up with specific serial numbers which were encrypted with Custom's CS and small, more compact serial number CS XXXXX The first two numbers represent on which number this specific model was built, next two represent the year they were made in and the last numeric value represents the month of formation 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gibson Les Paul Custom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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