![]() ![]() On my particular example,the fretboard was dark,with quite a few open pores in spots.3-piece maple neck.the guitar was quite heavy too.It had outstanding sustain.įinally those pickups. Yes, it had the very slim neck.Almost toothpick to me,small hands would love it(not mine though).Pointy star shaped strap buttons(still have) The schaller tuning machines were phenomonal.better than the grovers of the day. The belly carve was identical to the original op's carve,the most pronounced belly i've ever seen, very violin-like. ![]() The 82 i owned(and sold years ago)had an outstanding darkburst.the darkest i've ever seen,beautiful! I took off the schaller bridge(chrome) and still have it in my parts bin. I will corroborate this Darrell with my own 2 cents worth of experience. I have some signature Les Pauls, and I can tell you that the Candy Apple is my favorite and it would be the last guitar I would sell if I had to. I am dying to see what kind of grain is under this finish, but would never ruin this very rare finish. Even the custom shop colored run from the late 90s all had translucent finishes. Neither of the 93s had the stickers so they may have been worn off over the years or just not included.īesides Gold Tops and Black Beauties, these Candy Apple Reds were the only Les Pauls that I have seen produced where the finish is opaque,meaning that you cannot see any of the grain underneath the finish. I've seen a total of 3 Candy Apples, 1 from 1983 and 2 from 1993. I have it since 1990 so I really think it came this way.ġ982-83 is in the window when Kalamazoo was winding down and Nashville was ramping up. The 1983 I have also has a brass nut, yeah brass nut, but since I have only seen one from 83 I don't know if that's how they came, or it was modified. The frets on the 1983 were very low profile vintage frets as compared to the jumbo frets that are more common on most Les Pauls. I had to change the tuners as they were not very good quality and were slipping quite a bit, and went with grover locking tuners with different screw holes, but the guitar stays in tune now whereas the old stock tuners would stay in tune for 1 year or one bend which ever came first. Through a good tube amp, the stickered pickups are very microphonic and you don't need much overdrive pedal when they are wide open and they clean up really nice when you back off the volume, just like a real PAF would, but grittier. I thought I read that the real PAFs were ~7K. A luthier measured the stickered pickups and read 14K on them both, telling me he thinks they were intentionally or accidentally overwound. Also note the pole screws are gold plated and the 1982 pictures in this thread they are nickel plated screwsm that would not be consistent with gold hardware covers, so another reason why I think the 1982 had the pickups replaced. The 1983 that I have has black/gold PAF stickers on the pickup rings (these stickers were typically affixed to the back of the pickups on vintage guitars, and not visible). Nothing out of the ordinary was said about these pickups in the press releases. He created, without any fanfare or publicity from Gibson, an identical 1959 Gibson PAF humbucker. Gibson assigned one of their engineers to take apart the old PAF's, analyze the magnets, scope all the electronic data for the wiring specs, output voltage, capacitors, etc, etc. They most likely are Tim Shaw's as an article notes: I believe the important distinction between these Candy Apples and any other production "Red" Les Paul is the pickups. The Candy Apple finish is opaque on front, back and sides of the guitar. The hardware on these Candy Apples were gold plated all around including the tuners, bridge and tailpiece. The neck is interesting on that 1985 in that it is an ebony fret board on a standard which is the same as the Candy Apple Reds. Some ways to distinguish these models are definitely the hardware, which is why you can disqualify the 1985 Ferrari Red as from the picture it looks like nickel hardware. The metallic red one in the thread from 1982 looks like one, but the pickups look 'too good' and I'm not so sure about the metal trim rings around the pickups, so I'm not sure if it's original, Perhaps they started production on them in 1982 (coincides with the 1952 Anniversary -) and went through to 1983 as the pickups became available. There are some pictures and discussion about Ferrari Red, but that is not the same guitar. I have a 1983 that I picked up used around 1990, and will detail it.įrom what I remember the history of this model is that it was made as an anniversary 'special edition', pre custom-shop, albeit a year late from the 1952 first Les Pauls sold by Gibson. These are the ones I have seen in person and checked the serial numbers that dated them as 19. The guitar you are referencing were only in 2 runs, ~1983 and ~1993. A little late on my reply but I just found this thread and signed up today. ![]()
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