This is a 2023 Murphy Lab recreation of a heavily used 1957 Gold Top Les Paul; the first model to come with the new fangled Humbucker pickups. It still retained the gold paint from previous years though so was almost at the stage of losing the paint to become the 'burst' of 1958-60 but essentially it is that model.

The previous year had featured the ABR-1 and stop tailpiece but had P90 pickups and I sold a 1956 custom shop Les Paul to fund the purchase of this.

It comes with a very beaten Lifton case and goodness knows what they do to those poor cases but it looks like it's been sent on a round trip to the Moon and back. It is lovely and pink inside though!

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Externally, the guitar has all sorts of aging and goes a few steps more radical than just a few checking lines!

Look at the gallery above and see!

The back of the neck is all off and has some dark staining as does the back of the body. Now, my friend has one also and his hasn't got the dark stain and was made about 6 months later in 2023 so it seems weird that Gibson have a few ways to age these things. Peach guitars have 2 of these as at the time of writing and both are like mine. Weird.

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Anyway, at first I was a bit disconcerted and further so when I played it and found the top e string buzz - as if with some fret buzz. This buzz occurred at the last fret too though so it wasn't actual fret buzz.

I found the culprit to be a badly slotted saddle and in fact all of the saddles, being plated brass, are poorly done with the soft brass creating a 'swarf' or sliver of material where the cut was made and allowing the extruded brass to interfere with the string.

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I know Gibson have started using an historically accurate ABR-1 now but that's a QC issue that they should address. I popped in a saddle from a spare ABR-1 I had and it cured it. I have reached out to Gibson Europe and Thomann to ask them for some replacements and I'll see what they say.

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I also have a Crazyparts historic ABR-1 on the way with plated brass saddles as a possible replacement.

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So not an unqualified joy straight out the box to be honest.

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However, these things happen and guitars like this are hand made really and I realise they can't be perfect. Not even PRS are perfect as I have found out in the past.

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Other than that, I am liking it. It has a more woody and vibrant acoustic feel than my other '57 custom shop so luckily I still feel happy to sell it. Had my new one been worse and with the buzz issue, it might have been returned to Thomann as I know they have a great return policy.

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Check out my video demo below!