GIBSON LES PAUL CUSTOM (WHITE)

The Gibson Les Paul was introduced in 1952, and was made of a mahogany body with a 1" maple cap, mahogany neck with rosewood fret board and twoP-90 pickups. The guitar was only available in a golden finish. In 1954 a more luxurious version was introduced, most probably on specific request by Les Paul himself, as he wanted a more luxurious and classy looking guitar. He requested a black guitar as he wanted it to "look like a tuxedo". Nicknamed the Black Beauty, the guitar had a mahogany body and neck, ebony fret board and mother of pearl block markers inlays in the fret board. The pickups were a P90 in the bridge position and a newly designed by Seth Lover Alnico V pickup in the neck position.^[1] The frets are low and flat, as opposed to the usual medium jumbo frets found on other Les Paul customs, and the guitar soon was given the nickname "The Fretless Wonder". The hardware is either gold or nickel silver plated.

By 1957 The Black Beauty also came equipped with either 2 or 3 PAF humbuckers, but strictly speaking this model is not a 'fretless wonder', as the frets were standard medium jumbo frets.

Today, the Les Paul Custom is made with a maple-capped mahogany body rather than the solid mahogany body of the 1954 model. It is available in silverburst, ebony, alpine white, wine red and cherry sunburst. The Custom model differs from the Les Paul Standard in many ways. The cosmetic differences include gold hardware (though silverburst Customs have chrome hardware); block inlays on the fretboard rather than the "crown" inlays of the Standard (with an inlay at the 1st fret, whereas the Standard has none); a "split-diamond" pearl inlay on the headstock; and multi-ply binding around the body, neck and headstock. The construction differences are an ebony fretboard which tends to sound "snappier" and make the fretboard more "slippery," lower frets with more squared off tops that give the instrument the nickname the "fretless wonder" and larger round "speed" style knobs (though other knob types can be seen depending on the year).

The "Split Diamond" Inlay on the headstock was taken from Gibson's 'greatest guitar', the Super 400 CES, a carved archtop, hollow body electric guitar.