darkwave
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
- Messages
- 390
I have not read anywhere, that I can recall, that the fretboard was ever replaced? It certainly has been refretted, likely multiple times. The MOP on the first fret of "The Phenix" is exactly the same as it was back in the '70s, so if it was replaced, whomever did the work must have saved the MOP?
This is a fairly early (latter Humble Pie/early Frampton) picture of it. The marker is nowhere near the size of Les Paul's '54 or any of the '50s for that matter, but Frampton's was confirmed to be a '54.
![]()
![]()
Well, that picture is a head-scratcher... When his guitar was first discovered I was in the camp that thought it was a fraud BECAUSE the inlays weren't typical of a '54. When it was authenticated there was a quote from Frampton himself that said Gibson had done work on it shortly before the crash which included replacing the fretboard. Read it on this site and thought that was the magic bullet in believing it was real. Don't know what to say now, but I had never seen a 54-56 that didn't have the typical "same sized" upper inlays. Not sure what to think now...
-Douglas C.