FEATURE ’59 LES PAUL STANDARD ‘MINNESOTA’
Note the colour contrast between the pickguard and the pickup ring on Minnesota
The poker chip on the production model has no lettering, but the edges are authentically rough and its made of the right material
to try. It took them about six months to figure out how to do it again. So now they do the pickguards, the four-ply jack plates and the three-ply toggle washer.” With that, we’re done for the day. The guys explain that back at the Gibson factory, Matthew will take responsibility for programming the CNC machine, prototyping the neck and ironing out bugs. Eventually, a prototype will be put together and shipped to Andrew for comments and approval. We wonder about the timescale. “Right now, we have a lot of guitars that are documented and on the schedule,” Edwin tells us, “But that doesn’t mean that Minnesota won’t go into production this year. Say I’m on a wood-buying trip and I come across 150 tops that look like Minnesota’s, this guitar will move straight to the front of the line.”
Prototypes & Production Edwin and Matthew fly back to Nashville the following day and the waiting begins. At this point, none of us has any idea how long it will take or even when the first prototype will materialise. Fortunately, everything happens quickly, and by early May 2016 the prototype has arrived. Andrew gives us the call, and it’s a classic case of ‘close but no cigar’. On the plus side, the first prototype’s neck is a dead ringer for Minnesota’s and has a similarly lightweight and easy-playing feel. In fact, it plays just
Minnesota’s poker chip has faded lettering, and you can see tooling marks at the edge
Gibson’s plastic parts are closer to the originals than ever, but they’ll need some playing time to achieve the same patina as Minnesota
as nicely as the original with a very similar acoustic voice. The most obvious difference between the real thing and first prototype is that the outer edges of the sunburst are too red and ‘tomato soup-y’, and the binding isn’t yellow enough. We also notice that Gibson hasn’t replicated the wear on the bass side of the neck. Photos are taken, emails are written and Andrew sends our feedback off to Nashville. Edwin clearly got lucky on a timber-buying trip soon after and we didn’t have to wait too long for Minnesota to go into production after all. TGM editor Chris Vinnicombe paid the Gibson Custom factory a visit while he was in Nashville covering Summer NAMM in June 2016, where there were Minnesota Bursts in final assembly that very day. By July, Collector’s Choice #39 had hit the shops and Andrew had taken possession of prototype number two and the very first model to roll off the production line.
Hands On Although we now turn our attention to the production model, what follows differs slightly from a regular review. We always assess build quality, playing experience, tone, aesthetic appeal, and we’ll cover those same bases here. However, the crucial difference is that the production model will be judged against the guitar it’s purported to replicate, as well as on its own merits.
This begs the question ‘is it fair to compare a £7,599 guitar with one that’s worth about as much as a suburban semi-detached house?’. We think it’s justified because all of the raw materials that went into making Les Pauls back in the 1950s are still available. The vertigo-inducing value of vintage Les Pauls actually comes from their association with seminal recordings and their extreme rarity rather than solid gold hardware, diamond inlays or other such exotica. You might say that it’s all about the tone, because it’s popularly imagined that age has somehow ‘seasoned’ the original instruments. But we’re not convinced that’s a valid argument. The Les Pauls that Peter Green, Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfied played in the 60s were less than a decade old, yet the records are proof they sounded incredible. Besides which, there are plenty of 70s guitars that sound just as dull and lifeless now as they did when new. Age alone guarantees nothing. If the Beano Burst resurfaced tomorrow, we’re not convinced it would sound better now than it did 50 years ago. You could get into minutiae such as neck profiles, weight and appearance and you’d be on safer ground. The real Bursts we’ve played have knocked our socks off – not because of their value but because they feel utterly fantastic and the PAF pickups from that era have never been bettered. Of course, the patina and historic significance intensifies >
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01/02/2018 11:38