Smokey | soldguitars

2007 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Standard 1958 Historic Reissue (R8)

"Smokey"

# 8-7026

Well. For someone who had very little interest in Gibson’s historic reissues, I have to say that my R9 (‘Earle’) has had quite an impact on me. Girth, weightiness, soaring sustain and a big, fat chubby neck. Glorious.

But ... wouldn’t it be nice if the neck was even chunkier? Hmm. I guess it would. The obvious solution was to look carefully for a nice R8, which is precisely what I did. Ideally, it would be in a Burst finish that I didn’t have on a Lester already but which was still pretty, it needed to be as original as possible (no nasty modifications) and it needed to play as well as Earle, only with some extra neck-chub.

So I watched, and waited. A truck-load of cherry sunbursts passed by, a few iced teas, and then ... hello ... a really rather fetching tobacco burst? Don’t mind if I do, so I did.

Now, full disclosure. I’ve not normally been a fan of tobacco burst stuff. I remember first seeing Slash with one in the video to November Rain and wondering what the HELL he was doing ... his guitar wasn’t cherry sunburst, therefore it was shite. Simple.

Lots of water has passed under the bridge since then though, and I’ve kinda matured.

Crucially, the burst on this isn’t too dark ... you can still see grain through the deep brown stuff, and that deep brown never becomes remotely blackish, which is a turn-off. It’s a nice, rich burst, which I like very much. Also, the dark sections don’t cover the upper bouts ... Gibson often used to cover the upper bouts entirely, leaving just a plectrum-shaped patch of yellow over the centre of the maple cap ... that’s nasty. What certainly ISN’T nasty is the tobacco burst top against the brown-back finish ... which is JUST delicious.

I picked this up from a local geezer for a VERY reasonable price ... the same price as a very pretty stop-tail Lester Axcess which I had my eye on, but the neck and build of the R8 won me over, so the Axcess will have to wait until another day ... there’ll be another eventually.

This has most of the stuff that Earle has (except flamed maple!), including a one-piece mahogany back, skinny neck binding (with intact nibs), tortoise shell side markers, the correct ABR-1 bridge, a long neck-tenon, the Reissue ‘Model’ font, and the correct format serial number (the older 1958 reissues start with 8, followed by a space before the four following digits, just like they used to be in 1958 ... details ... they’re important).

Pickups are the original Burstbucker I & II, which I’m no stranger to, and like very much. All the other electronics are equally original, down to the bumblebee caps.

So, it plays fantastically, has a neck like a tree-trunk, looks great and sounds awesome. A very happy snag.
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