Old Black - Appearance and Customization

Appearance and Customization

Old Black is allegedly a 1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop. It has been customized quite considerably: after the guitar had been left at a guitar repair store, the original bridge pickup was replaced by a Gretsch Dynasonic single-coil pickup. Eventually a mini-humbucker pickup from a Gibson Firebird guitar replaced the Dynasonic. The neck pickup has always been the original P-90 pickup, but it is covered by a metal P-90 cover, most likely from a Gibson ES-330. It was roughly resprayed to jet black, and received a new Tune-o-matic bridge (not available when the guitar was produced) and a B-7 model Bigsby vibrato tailpiece. It would presumably also have had a white plastic pickguard at some point, as was standard on 1953 Goldtops. Old Black is notable for its metal hardware, including an aluminium pickguard. The pickguard and back plates are chrome-on-brass. The tuners have been replaced with Schaller M-6 tuning keys, and the rest of the hardware is mostly nickel-plated. The headstock displays a partially painted-over mother-of-pearl inlay, sometimes referred to as a "wheat stack", rather than the typical "Les Paul Model" silk screened logo, along with single-ply binding around the headstock, although it has fallen off. There are several possibilities as to how the guitar ended up with these modifications. Most likely is that the neck was replaced by Gibson sometime between 1961 and 1968. In 1961, Gibson replaced the commercially unpopular Les Paul model with the guitar we now know as the SG. Les Paul was not happy with the new version of his namesake guitar, so he ended his endorsement of it. When he ended his endorsement, Gibson was not allowed to put the silk-screened Les Paul Model logo on their guitars anymore. Although rare, there are several examples of 1950s Les Pauls that were sent to the Gibson factory in the 1960s for neck replacements, and they all have the "Wheat Stack" inlay on the headstock.