Gibson 58 Les Paul Electric Guitar

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Paul Standard introduced in 1958 hoped to correct Gibsons waning sales of solid body electric guitars, which had been on the decline ever since 1953 when the company shipped 2,245 instruments.BodyFor the 1958 Standard Plaintop, Gibson decided to arrange the maple top in two bookmatched pieces glued together at the center seam, giving each guitar its very own distinct look and marking the beginning of the guitar worlds fascination with figured maple tops, even though the majority of the tops used in 1958 were considered plain when compared to the tops used one year later and beyond.FinishLegendary Gibson president Ted McCarty and his staff partly blamed the guitars Goldtop finish as the main culprit for the sales slump and decided to forego the finish in favor of new, brighter finish dubbed Cherry Sunburst, which allowed the natural beauty of the maple top to be showcased something that had previously been concealed by the Goldtop finish.Additionally, Cherry Sunburst was the only color other than Gold that was used to finish the new Les Paul Standards in 1958, even though clear differences in the color of vintage examples would suggest otherwise. These variations were due mainly to the inconsistency of the red pigment used by Gibson to paint the sunburst finish, a problem that wasnt corrected until the early 1960s and which caused many of the guitars to fade to some degree of amber, honey or yellow hue. This problem inadvertently led to the creation of many of the fin
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