Have you ever had a long standing belief challenged? It occurred to me that until last Wednesday one of my longest standing beliefs may not be true. For all the sixty six years that I’ve been on the planet I’ve had a very specific belief about my mom and that belief went like this: My mom was way cooler than your mom. My mom was way cooler than just about anyone I’ve ever met. I’m not trying to brag, or be a snob, about all this. The simple fact was that my mom was just about one of the coolest people I’ve ever known. She was incredibly kind, caring and went about her life in the most intelligent way. My mom was smart. Thinking back, I can’t think of a single dumb thing she ever did? I can name at least five not so smart things I’ve done in the last twenty four hours. My mom? She was like gold and there’s nothing ever wrong with gold. Ever hear anyone complain about gold? Me neither.
What happened at the core of my belief system? It was a guitar. Not just any guitar but one of the coolest guitars a person could ever hope to own. The guitar in question is gold. More specifically, it has a gold top. It’s a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Standard.
This particular goldtop is special for a couple of reasons. First of all it’s in absolutely stunning 100% original condition. I heard about this thing the other day from my buddy Miclain at work. He caught the email from the original owner’s family about possible consignment at Carter Vintage. A few days later, last Wednesday to be specific, I see Greg happily walking through the back of the shop with what looks like a reissue Lifton case under his arm. “It’s here!” I’m thinking what’s the big deal about a reissue?
“This is the ’57 goldtop with the P-90s.” Greg intoned.
A guitar case can sometimes tell you a lot about the guitar inside. As I stood there and stared at the case my eyes began to come back into focus and I knew I was in for a treat when we unhinged the five latches to reveal the bounty within. These moments always bring back feelings of an old childhood fantasy of mine. My fantasy of being a Pirate on the high seas; finding treasure on an uncharted island and bringing it back to the pirates lair to behold.
Man, this case did not disappoint.
We opened the case and there it was. A stunningly gorgeous, crazy clean, all original Les Paul Standard made in 1957. I flipped the guitar over real fast to have a look at the serial number. The guitar is a dark back and the inked on number checked all the originality boxes for correct font and color. That’s the first thing I like to check as I’ve yet to see a perfect reproduction of the old ink stamps that Gibson used. There’s some really good fake stamps out there but none of them look exactly like the real deal. After the serial number, I quickly made note of the fact that the tuner buttons were perfect and the back of the single line Kluson’s were just about as untarnished as I’ve ever seen on a sixty seven year old guitar. Seems like the last dozen or so Gibsons I’ve looked at lately had the “Decaying tuner button” disease so common to those old Klusons. These buttons were just amazing.
The dark back was gorgeous and it was so cool to see how the finish had sunk into the wood grain over the years. There were a couple of small nicks on a couple of areas around the body edge and that was it for wear. I’ve seen six month old guitars with more wear.
We flipped the guitar over to check out the top side and all of us were floored all over again. Not even a weather check! Not so much as one. The gold paint was in almost perfect condition. A little tiny bit of greening where the player’s right arm would’ve draped over the top. That was it for any sort of hint that this thing was old.
Working our way down from the top of the headstock we noticed the logo was still in the “Low” position like the previous model goldtop Les Pauls have. 1957 is when the logo gets moved up closer to the top of the headstock and that happens when the guitars went from P-90s to hum-buckers. The “Les Paul Model” silkscreen was intact and correct. The truss rod cover had the “Rolling” or tooling marks on it like it should.
The original nut showed no signs of wear as did the frets. The inlays were perfect and not shrunk. This think was like a time capsule.
I always like to take a bit of time and marvel at the Brazilian rosewood fretboards on ’50’s Gibsons and this one did not disappoint. Beautiful straight grain and incredible color to the board on this guitar. It has this one incredibly cool area of figure right at the first inlay between the second and third frets. The grain of the board bends tightly around the inlay. It outlines the inlay so well and it looks as if someone painted the grain on the board. I was seriously geeking out to this thing.
I glanced down towards the body of the guitar and noticed the seam separating the two pieces of the top went straight down the middle of the body. You don’t see that everyday on gold tops.
The pickup covers, pole piece screws, knobs, poker chip, switch tip, guard and all the rest of the hardware was 100% and super clean.
We flipped the guitar over to have a look at the controls and the screws holding the back plate were tight, really tight. I looked at them closely, not a mark on them. Pretty sure the last time they were turned was in Kalamazoo sixty seven years ago. Inside the control cavity was a set of Bumblebees sitting over perfect, untouched solder joints; also not disturbed since they were made sixty seven years ago.
A quick peak down the neck and the relief looked perfect. I tuned the guitar and played a few notes. Despite the original ABR-1 bridge being warped the guitar played well and had no issues. We’ll get a new ABR-1 bridge from Gibson. Put the original in a bag and put it in the case pocket for posterity.
The pickup readings were a little over 8K for the neck pickup and 7.7K for the bridge. The guitar is so insanely clean I was a bit afraid to play it too much. I did notice that it has that fat classic P-90 tone we all love. It’s killer sounding guitar.
So, what happened to that story about my mom you ask? Well, here’s the icing on the cake. The original owner of this guitar, the only owner so far, was a woman. She got the guitar new in 1957. There are two pictures of her with the guitar from the 1950’s. They are like the coolest pictures… ever! This automatically makes her the coolest woman I know. Besides, my mom played piano. The piano’s nice but it’s not a Gibson Les Paul. So hat’s off to the original owner of this stunner. Man, talk about incredibly discerning taste in musical instruments. Lady, you win.
Sorry mom.
And, truly and honestly, I was only kidding. You were the OG of mom’s and forever the greatest human on the planet as far as I’m concerned. But man, that goldtop!
Gary Bohannon is Senior Authenticator and Acquisitions for Carter Vintage. If you have a vintage instrument you’d like to sell through CVG, reach out to info@cartervintage.com
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