Two questions answered about original Les Pauls

singemonkey

First. What did they really look like when they were new, since the fade heavily with use and get battered? This is what they looked like when they were new:

This is a 1960 Les Paul Standard in mint condition. This is what you would have seen hanging on guitar store walls in the late '50s and early '60s with tags hanging off them - and customers walking past them to look at the Strats ?.

The second question is (as always): do the original guitars sound better than all the modern replicas? Well I lied here, because a lot more evidence is needed. But this one certainly sounds absolutely amazing:

domhatch

singemonkey wrote: "But this one certainly sounds absolutely amazing:"

+1. and here are two more questions for you... what would the price on the tag have been back then, and what would the price be now for that guitar? just interesting to know...

peace
dh

vic

domhatch wrote:
singemonkey wrote: "But this one certainly sounds absolutely amazing:"
+1. and here are two more questions for you... what would the price on the tag have been back then, and what would the price be now for that guitar? just interesting to know...

peace
dh

Les Paul Standard Cherry Sunburst 1960 $265.00
Plushline case ("caligirl") $42.50
LP deluxe zipper case cover $30.00

Source: The Beauty of the Burst (Y Iwanade)

Now,...not sure but say $200-500k :-\

singemonkey

Yeah. In the condition this thing is in, definitely closer to $500,000. It's pretty much unplayable, financially, except for brief demos like this.

I ran those original MSRPs (presumably store prices would have been cheaper) through an inflation calculator and came up with a figure around $2,000. The MSRPs for the reissues are all about $4,000 and up ?

vic

singemonkey wrote: Yeah. In the condition this thing is in, definitely closer to $500,000. It's pretty much unplayable, financially, except for brief demos like this.

I ran those original MSRPs (presumably store prices would have been cheaper) through an inflation calculator and came up with a figure around $2,000. The MSRPs for the reissues are all about $4,000 and up ?

Agree....The guitar is in amazing condition for its age and would probably fetch a very high price now. Re. the price of modern ones, I think the price of tone woods (and US labour costs,etc) have gone up significantly over the last 10-15 years or so...(especially if you source via "agents" in Brazil and Madagascar... ?)

domhatch

now that's what i call ROI...

deefstes

domhatch wrote:
singemonkey wrote: "But this one certainly sounds absolutely amazing:"
+1.

Can you guys actually appreciate the amazing tone from a Youtube recording? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity. I'm not nearly as experienced as you guys but if I'm being very honest with myself, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference in tone between this recording and another one made with a 2009 Chinese Epiphone through a Roland Cube.

Very nice ditty though. The abrupt ending just killed me. "That's all, thanks for listening." ?

Warren

deefstes wrote:
Can you guys actually appreciate the amazing tone from a Youtube recording? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity. I'm not nearly as experienced as you guys but if I'm being very honest with myself, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference in tone between this recording and another one made with a 2009 Chinese Epiphone through a Roland Cube.

Very nice ditty though. The abrupt ending just killed me. "That's all, thanks for listening." ?

I agree there.

It seems to sound nice, and it's one of those "definitive LP tone" pieces, but you can certainly come close as dammit with any number of modern replicas (tone-wise). Certainly, YouTube isn't the best medium for replicating the tone for us mere mortals that aren't going to hear one in person. ?

ezietsman

Warren wrote:
deefstes wrote:
Can you guys actually appreciate the amazing tone from a Youtube recording? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity. I'm not nearly as experienced as you guys but if I'm being very honest with myself, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference in tone between this recording and another one made with a 2009 Chinese Epiphone through a Roland Cube.

Very nice ditty though. The abrupt ending just killed me. "That's all, thanks for listening." ?
I agree there.

It seems to sound nice, and it's one of those "definitive LP tone" pieces, but you can certainly come close as dammit with any number of modern replicas (tone-wise). Certainly, YouTube isn't the best medium for replicating the tone for us mere mortals that aren't going to hear one in person. ?

It IS the best, as it is more or less the only one, unless there's a site somewhere with lots of very high quality recordings I don't know of...

Warren

ezietsman wrote:
It IS the best, as it is more or less the only one, unless there's a site somewhere with lots of very high quality recordings I don't know of...

True, from that perspective the only medium is inherently the best ?

Keira-WitherKay

Well if you want to hear the tone of say a 60's les paul or strat listen to some recordings of the time , some early blues has horrid quality of recording but all the rock classic acts like hendrix or led zep are recorded well enough to hear what classic guitars sound like . And just as a note quite often we in 2011 expect some magical tone from old classic guitars but many didn't sound that great and yes the worth a fortune for the history but some are not the tone machines the legend makes em out to be . I have personally played on not just 1 but a few vintage guitars and i would say only about half of them impressed me enough to want to sell my house my dog my mother to own . The rest were superb pieces of history but sounded no better than a modern copy . So as always some will be gems but many vintage guitars are only worth their place in history and not a players guitar ..

vic

Keira WitherKay wrote: Well if you want to hear the tone of say a 60's les paul or strat listen to some recordings of the time , some early blues has horrid quality of recording but all the rock classic acts like hendrix or led zep are recorded well enough to hear what classic guitars sound like . And just as a note quite often we in 2011 expect some magical tone from old classic guitars but many didn't sound that great and yes the worth a fortune for the history but some are not the tone machines the legend makes em out to be . I have personally played on not just 1 but a few vintage guitars and i would say only about half of them impressed me enough to want to sell my house my dog my mother to own . The rest were superb pieces of history but sounded no better than a modern copy . So as always some will be gems but many vintage guitars are only worth their place in history and not a players guitar ..

Agree 100%. I had the opportunity to play a real '56 some time ago and can honestly say that it's no better sounding than my 2010 '56 customshop Gibbo....granted the original had old strings. What it did have that mine has not got is history...this guitar was THERE when it all started... ?

domhatch

well, let me put it this way, and this is my perspective. i'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to hear the difference given the compression, etc, on a youtube video. and let's imagine the worst (not insinuating anything), for instance that someone put us all to the test by putting an epiphone up there and making us all believe it was an original '60 gibson lp. horrible thought, but not impossible to pull off. i would imagine there are not too many of us who'd be able to tell the difference over the 'net, if the same player played the same choon.

however, given that this particular guitar would very much appear to be the genuine article, and the guitar in the youtube video shown here is more or less vouched for as being the genuine article, i get goosebumps that a 50 plus-year old guitar produces such awesome tone, compression et al be damned.

nice bit of playing, too.
dh

singemonkey

Well, youtube may not be the height of sonic excellence, but when you've got a decently miked up amp like this, and you've listened to a few recordings, you can certainly tell the difference between a good sounding LP and a crap one. It helps when the person can do a perfect note for note Peter Green like this. But there are audible characteristics that make it a very good sounding LP.

The same goes for many recordings from the '60s. They used great microphones and wide tape, and in many, but not all, you can hear the characteristics of the guitar and amplifier (and microphone) very nicely. Enough at least to know that it was surprisingly easy to get great tone out of a late '50s LP over various players, various amplifiers, and various recordings.

Clearly not all of them were great. And clearly it's possible with the right guitar and pickups to get an indistinguishable sound. But many of those original guitars sounded pretty damn amazing. And this one's among them. Complex, airy, not over-smooth ? Maybe it's all in my imagination, but I don't think so.

MikeM

Not Les Paul, but....

Not sure if this is the right one either.. Connection is being a real pain. Someone posted a clip of a vintage LP being compared to a modern one... Anyone remember that?

vic

MikeM wrote: Not Les Paul, but....

Not sure if this is the right one either.. Connection is being a real pain. Someone posted a clip of a vintage LP being compared to a modern one... Anyone remember that?

I remember that one...I think Alan posted it (??). Unfortunately that modern Les Paul had replaced PUPS and not the stock customshop Gibson Burstbuckers (which reportedly sounds very close to the late 50's hummies)

singemonkey

Here's the one:

MikeM

Seems this is what I was looking for.