toneville
New member
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2019
- Messages
- 20
In response to the negative attitude sometimes given to plain top LP Standards.
It's the fall of 1959 and you are at the big music store in a nearby city to buy a new Les Paul guitar. There are two on hand at the store. Both are cherry sunburst. One is a plain clean even top and the other has some figure in the maple. The one with the curly top is not a symmetrical chevron or book-matched tiger stripe just some figure showing more on one side than the other. All else being equal, which do you choose as your new guitar?
It would not be a stretch to pick the plain top over a non-symmetric figured top back in the day. After all, flamey tops did not hold so much mystique and an even grained sunburst is very pretty and back in the conservative 50s it would still come across as pretty flashy.
Why did I use the comparison of a not so book-matched figured top? Because there were plenty of them made and they were sold somewhere. For every eye-popping flame top there was a less spectacular one sent to some dealer who sold it to someone who was the first proud owner.
All classic Les Pauls are real Les Pauls. Maybe a blind player should evaluate them and rate them before one gets tagged as "the one" or "nothing special."
Abe Lincoln was not a handsome man.
It's the fall of 1959 and you are at the big music store in a nearby city to buy a new Les Paul guitar. There are two on hand at the store. Both are cherry sunburst. One is a plain clean even top and the other has some figure in the maple. The one with the curly top is not a symmetrical chevron or book-matched tiger stripe just some figure showing more on one side than the other. All else being equal, which do you choose as your new guitar?
It would not be a stretch to pick the plain top over a non-symmetric figured top back in the day. After all, flamey tops did not hold so much mystique and an even grained sunburst is very pretty and back in the conservative 50s it would still come across as pretty flashy.
Why did I use the comparison of a not so book-matched figured top? Because there were plenty of them made and they were sold somewhere. For every eye-popping flame top there was a less spectacular one sent to some dealer who sold it to someone who was the first proud owner.
All classic Les Pauls are real Les Pauls. Maybe a blind player should evaluate them and rate them before one gets tagged as "the one" or "nothing special."
Abe Lincoln was not a handsome man.