Banditman wrote:
I stand to be corrected but I think that there were Goldtops made with flame to the tops. It is woodgrain after all, and doesn't mean it was bookmatched, but back then they'd have just put the finish down on the wood they had. It was "only" wood and that cool gold paint looked boss in '56, daddio.
The 'bursts didn't come onto the Les Paul market until '58, making the only real difference between the '57 Goldtop & the '58 'burst the colour itself. Everything else was basically the same guitar. Similar I suppose to VW freshening up a model like they've done with the Citi Golf.
Since this thread is active again, I thought I'd post this curiosity that illustrates the above:
This is a really early '58 sunburst LP. Check it out. The seam is off centre. I guess one crucial difference was that they started to care about whether the top was book-matched symmetrically. But quite a few gold-tops were successfully refinished as sunbursts - although only a lunatic would do that today.
