Just for the record - earliest 1968 Les Paul shipping dates.

The first Les Paul Custom shipped in the ledgers at Gibson was 28 May 1968. I spoke with Gibson about this and also received the letter below from Bob Burns with Gibson Customer Service.

Email from Gibson-
“Hello Bryan,

Thanks for contacting Gibson. Serial number 899358 appears consistent with a Les Paul Custom ship left the plant on 5/28/68 and serial number 538883 appears to be part of group of Les Paul Standard models which left the plant on 3/11/69. We do not have access to outside websites. We do not have information beyond the ship dates for these serial numbers.

Best regards,

Bob Burns

Gibson Customer Service”


Popular lore puts the month as June which was when NAMM was held that year.



Pics of said fiddles...

http://www.atomeveeclipse.com/guitars/6869LesPauls.html

This is awesome including the photos which are double awesome . Thank you kindly !

Great photos, thanks.

Thanks for sharing Bryan, that black Custom is fantastic, dream guitar to me! :salude

Great post! We should start a data base second on here with catalogs and awesome records like this. A PDF section.

AtomEve said:

The first Les Paul Custom shipped in the ledgers at Gibson was 28 May 1968. I spoke with Gibson about this and also received the letter below from Bob Burns with Gibson Customer Service.

Email from Gibson-
“Hello Bryan,

Thanks for contacting Gibson. Serial number 899358 appears consistent with a Les Paul Custom ship left the plant on 5/28/68 and serial number 538883 appears to be part of group of Les Paul Standard models which left the plant on 3/11/69. We do not have access to outside websites. We do not have information beyond the ship dates for these serial numbers.

Best regards,

Bob Burns

Gibson Customer Service”


Popular lore puts the month as June which was when NAMM was held that year.

Pics of said fiddles...

http://www.atomeveeclipse.com/guitars/6869LesPauls.html

Click to expand...

These Les Paul Customs also shipped 5/28/68, just fyi
899349
899359
899362

GibsonGuy said:

These Les Paul Customs also shipped 5/28/68, just fyi
899349
899359
899362

Click to expand...

Now that is great info. Are you with Gibson? I will give them a call back. This is not what I was told on the phone several years ago. Have a ledger you could forward? Thank you! Bryan