Hi everyone,
Matthias from France here. I’ll start with a quick introduction. Throughout my childhood I spent quite a lot of time at my dad's music shop just because I felt comfortable there. In my teens I started playing the guitar. The first electric I owned was a Storm SG, a cheap replica of the original model, followed a few years later by a second-hand 2000 Gibson SG Standard. Some 20 years later, the guitar is still with me. Over the years I have bought, sold and traded quite a few guitars. Through the last few years I have started a collection of vintage and custom shop SGs as they are still my favorite guitars. The 2000 Standard has been joined by a small number of friends from the 60s and the 70s – I believe some Norlin guitars are great and AC/DC is my favorite band. In this endeavor I have tried to educate myself and I have read as much as I could about the history of the guitar, Gibson, the SG, and so on.
Lately I have been particularly interested in the very first Les Pauls New Style produced from the end of 1960 until 1963 – the ones with the Sideways vibrola. As you know the guitar then became known as the SG with the Maestro vibrola. As some very knowledgeable people have noted, the information available in some specialized books such as Duchossoir (1983), Bulli (1989), Lawrence (2008) and Bacon (2015) is helpful but not always very accurate. As far as I know, today’s most valuable source of information on these guitars is a Les Paul Forum thread initiated by forum member’s blueline in 2017: https://www.lespaulforum.com/index.php?threads/those-1960-les-paul-sgs-where-can-they-be.204103/
I have tried to further the research started on this thread and I do believe I have made a few discoveries that might be valuable to those interested in these guitars. For instance, I have identified an unknown late 1960 Les Paul New Model and I have also made a few hypotheses on the many unanswered questions about this guitars – i.e how many were made and where are they now ?
As many of you know, information on the 1958-1960 “burst” Les Pauls is now all over the place, with dozens of books dedicated to the model, the “burst serial” website and so on. However the same can’t be said of the first 1960 - 1961 Les Pauls New Style, with very scarce information available. For the last couple of months I have entertained the idea of building the equivalent of the “burst serial” website for the 1960 – 1961 Les Pauls New Style. A few things prevented me from actually starting it, hence a couple of questions:
1. Would some members of this forum be interested by such an endeavor?
2. For documentation purposes, such a website would require some pictures from individuals, guitar stores, etc. Do you think there would be a need to ask the agreement of every picture owner to repost it on the website? I have checked the “burst serial” website but I’m not sure of what conclusions we can draw from it as I am not very familiar with US copyright infringement legislation.
With many thanks,
Matthias
Matthias from France here. I’ll start with a quick introduction. Throughout my childhood I spent quite a lot of time at my dad's music shop just because I felt comfortable there. In my teens I started playing the guitar. The first electric I owned was a Storm SG, a cheap replica of the original model, followed a few years later by a second-hand 2000 Gibson SG Standard. Some 20 years later, the guitar is still with me. Over the years I have bought, sold and traded quite a few guitars. Through the last few years I have started a collection of vintage and custom shop SGs as they are still my favorite guitars. The 2000 Standard has been joined by a small number of friends from the 60s and the 70s – I believe some Norlin guitars are great and AC/DC is my favorite band. In this endeavor I have tried to educate myself and I have read as much as I could about the history of the guitar, Gibson, the SG, and so on.
Lately I have been particularly interested in the very first Les Pauls New Style produced from the end of 1960 until 1963 – the ones with the Sideways vibrola. As you know the guitar then became known as the SG with the Maestro vibrola. As some very knowledgeable people have noted, the information available in some specialized books such as Duchossoir (1983), Bulli (1989), Lawrence (2008) and Bacon (2015) is helpful but not always very accurate. As far as I know, today’s most valuable source of information on these guitars is a Les Paul Forum thread initiated by forum member’s blueline in 2017: https://www.lespaulforum.com/index.php?threads/those-1960-les-paul-sgs-where-can-they-be.204103/
I have tried to further the research started on this thread and I do believe I have made a few discoveries that might be valuable to those interested in these guitars. For instance, I have identified an unknown late 1960 Les Paul New Model and I have also made a few hypotheses on the many unanswered questions about this guitars – i.e how many were made and where are they now ?
As many of you know, information on the 1958-1960 “burst” Les Pauls is now all over the place, with dozens of books dedicated to the model, the “burst serial” website and so on. However the same can’t be said of the first 1960 - 1961 Les Pauls New Style, with very scarce information available. For the last couple of months I have entertained the idea of building the equivalent of the “burst serial” website for the 1960 – 1961 Les Pauls New Style. A few things prevented me from actually starting it, hence a couple of questions:
1. Would some members of this forum be interested by such an endeavor?
2. For documentation purposes, such a website would require some pictures from individuals, guitar stores, etc. Do you think there would be a need to ask the agreement of every picture owner to repost it on the website? I have checked the “burst serial” website but I’m not sure of what conclusions we can draw from it as I am not very familiar with US copyright infringement legislation.
With many thanks,
Matthias
