TRUE HISTORIC PROTOTYPE #1
(Photos and information courtesy of Black Magic Guitars, out of San Jose, CA.) 

While this isn’t one of the 350 “Inspired By” models, I thought it was unique enough to be documented.

Seldom do Prototypes from the Gibson Custom Shop hit the open market. If you are a serious collector and fan of The Legendary Gibson Les Paul here is a very special treat and highly collectable guitar.

To make this Lester even more desirable this is prototype #1 in a run that never happened. Fully Documented Billy Gibbons True Historic! Gibson Custom Shop made 4 of these TOTAL, the end, end of story. 2 in Lemon and 2 in Sunburst, this is SB #1. They will NEVER go into production. You will never get another crack at them.

As we all know by now the True Historic’s set a new high water mark for the Custom Shop and Gibson as a whole in finally recreating a true 1959 Clone.

Every curve, every angle, every bit of plastic, metals, logo placement, knob placement, glues, dyes, lacquer, tops, weights, every single detail was scrutinized, scanned, hand sculpted and reverse engineered to the molecular level.

A preposterous amount of time, energy, resources and most importantly Labor went into these instruments. Double Carved Hand Sanded Tops & Necks, Rolled Binding, Wet Sanded Nitro (Crispy thin & resonant) No stone was left unturned.

Collectability aside this is a MONSTER LP.  A great guitar is the sum of its parts…
• Perfect weight. 8.6 lbs.
• STUNNING Top!
• Perfect neck profile .87 – .99
• Phenomenal Custom-buckers they remind me a lot of Pat # PAF’s consistently stellar.
• Vintage Correct EVERYTHING!

Oh and one more and imo the MOST important thing that elevates the True Historic Series as a whole. They used 1/3 (only 4mm) of the lacquer as your run of the mill R9. You get the resonance and feel of a Vintage instrument.