Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

About the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

This guitar's entire reason for existing traces back to one of the strangest reversals in instrument history. When Gibson introduced the sunburst-finished Les Paul Standard in 1958, players largely rejected it - expensive, heavy, and old-fashioned next to Fender's lighter, more modern-feeling instruments. Barely 1,400 Standards were built across 1958-1960 before Gibson discontinued the model entirely in favor of what became the SG. The guitars sat unwanted and relatively cheap for years, until blues-rock guitarists including Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck picked up secondhand examples in the mid-1960s and built a sound on them that redefined what an electric guitar could do. Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Mike Bloomfield, Keith Richards, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, and Slash followed, and original '59 Bursts now sell at auction for anywhere from $100,000 to over $1 million - a commercial failure transformed into the most coveted electric guitar design ever made. This Custom Shop reissue is Gibson's attempt to close that gap for players who can't access an original: laser-scanned body dimensions, chemically recreated plastics, and color-matched sunburst shades sit alongside a genuinely authentic construction detail - the neck is joined using hot hide glue, the same adhesive Gibson actually used in the 1950s, rather than the modern glues typical of contemporary guitar manufacturing. Unpotted CustomBucker humbuckers aim for vintage PAF character, and a thin VOS nitrocellulose finish replaces the thicker polyurethane coatings of non-Custom-Shop instruments. The range spans multiple aging tiers - VOS, Ultra Light Aged, Factory Burst, and Murphy Lab treatments - all sharing this identical underlying specification, differing only in how much simulated wear each carries.

Where to buy

• Reverb 4.455 EUR Best price View details
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Sound character of the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

Unpotted CustomBucker humbuckers - pickups left unsealed in wax, closer to how original PAFs were built - aim to preserve the slightly looser, more dynamically responsive character vintage PAF enthusiasts associate with pre-1960s Gibson humbuckers, described by Gibson as the latest evolution of their PAF-style pickup design rather than a departure from it.

What owners of the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present) say

Reviewers treat this reissue as a genuine milestone in Gibson's own reissue history, specifically citing improved pickups and fingerboard cosmetics over earlier Historic versions - though even enthusiastic reviews are honest that pickup covers still don't perfectly match vintage spec, a small but acknowledged gap. The overall framing across sources is that this is as close as most players will realistically get to the original '59 experience without spending original-instrument money.

Playability & handling of the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

Reviewers specifically praise the hot hide glue neck joint as a genuine, functionally meaningful nod to 1950s construction rather than a marketing detail - the same adhesive technique Gibson actually used decades ago, still believed by many builders to affect resonance and neck-to-body coupling differently than modern glues.

Recommended accessories & strings for the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

24.75-inch scale suits standard .010-.046 sets or heavier vintage-style gauges well. Since the different aging tiers (VOS, Ultra Light Aged, Factory Burst, Murphy Lab) share an identical underlying specification, the choice between them is purely cosmetic - pick based on desired wear appearance rather than expecting any tonal difference.

Technical data for the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

Price history for the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

Cheapest seen: 4.455 EUR  ·  Most expensive seen: 10.687 EUR

The history of the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

Few instruments illustrate the gap between contemporary reception and later legend as starkly as this one. The 1958-1960 sunburst Les Paul Standard was, by any commercial measure available at the time, a failure - too expensive, too heavy, too old-fashioned for guitarists comparing it against Fender's newer designs, and Gibson pulled the plug after barely 1,400 units. What changed its fate wasn't a redesign or a marketing push; it was blues-rock guitarists in the mid-1960s discovering that these unwanted, secondhand instruments produced a tone unlike anything else available, and building era-defining records around that sound. Eric Clapton's work with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Jeff Beck's tenure in the Yardbirds turned the 'Burst' into an object of desire almost overnight, and the list of guitarists who followed - Page, Allman, Bloomfield, Richards, Gibbons, Perry, Slash - reads like a survey of electric guitar's most influential voices. Gibson's own Custom Shop Historic reissue program, running since 1993, exists specifically to close the gap between that legend and what regular players can actually access, and this current generation - laser-scanned, hot-hide-glued, finished in period-correct thin nitrocellulose - represents, according to at least one detailed review, the most historically accurate version of that recreation Gibson has yet produced.

About Gibson as a manufacturer

Built by Gibson's Custom Shop as part of the Historic reissue program running since 1993, applying laser-scanning, period-correct hot hide glue neck joints, and chemically recreated period plastics to recreate the specific dimensions and appearance of an original 1958-1960 sunburst Les Paul Standard.

Notable players & recordings featuring the Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard Reissue (2020 - Present)

The players who defined this guitar's legend - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Mike Bloomfield, Keith Richards, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, and Slash - are all associated with original 1958-1960 instruments discovered largely secondhand starting in the mid-1960s, not with this specific 2020-present Custom Shop reissue. That distinction matters given how directly this model markets itself on that original legend.