Listed here for sale is this fantastic 1972 Gibson Les Paul Custom in original black finish.  Built when they were made from mahogany with a maple cap and mahogany neck too.  The guitar has about 1 million dings and lacquer cracks all over it, back of the body is worst with heavy belt worming and a small area of flaked off finish.  Don’t let this put you off, it is a very cool guitar and looks much better in real life than in the pics.

There is a small area of cord melt on the binding near the jack socket.  No cracks or mends to the wood and no extra screw holes in the body.  No headstock mends or cracks on this guitar.  Back of the neck is smooth and has no missing finish.  Original nut and early 70s truss cover with the engraved script not printed.  Serial number is stamped above the “Made in USA” and is 190827.

 Looking at the front of the headstock there is evidence of Grover tuning machines having been fitted in the past, no extra screw holes were made though so that is good.

 The bridge is the original piece with the Gibson pat number cast into the base. The tailpiece has tarnished to a lesser degree so may be a replacement some time ago.

 Pickups are the T-Tops that everybody needs these days for that authentic 70’s tone!  It was common to rip them out and replace them with super distortion aftermarket units back then, however looking at the tops of these T-Top pickups the gold covers appear to have gone missing years ago.  It was widely believed removing the covers would give more top end to the sound.  Neck tenon is visible in the neck pickup route hole, as it should be.

 The pots in the control cavity are stamped 1377206, the tone caps look like vintage era replacements, but it all sounds GREAT !  The knobs are modern replacements but look well aged and in keeping with the original spec.

 The ebony fretboard has a wonderful rounded edge to it, has had a refret with no sharp fret ends and has a very comfortable feel.

 Plays and sounds great!  Lots of grunt in the neck and middle positions with plenty of clarity to cut through the mix in the bridge position.  This is a nice vintage guitar, not a pristine museum piece by any means.  Has had some replacement parts obviously, which is to be expected on a well used, working instrument that has earned its keep over 40 odd years of grinding out the Rock.

 Weighs in at 10 lbs on my scales.

 Comes with the ratty Gibson case seen in the pics, nice pink lining inside with no busted hinges. Gibson logo still just visible under a lot of removed sticker glue residue.  All of the tolex is still there.  Two of the clasps work good, a third is dodgy and the lock clasp is busted.