Classic Guitars: Jimmy Page Limited Edition Signature Les Paul

06 Sep 2009 by Laurie Sellers

Photo courtesy of Jomar Reyes

Laurie Sellers began playing guitar in 1959 at the age of 11. From his roots in the 60s and 70s Laurie has researched and gathered together an assortment of vintage and collectable guitars, including some interesting instruments inspired by the iconic rock legends of the time. We asked Laurie if he would share his passion with you by showcasing one of his guitars in each edition, and telling the story behind it.

There are three guitars that come to mind when I think of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page: the Gibson SG Double Neck as used on Stairway to Heaven, the Fender Telecaster used on the first Zep album, but mostly Jimmy’s favourite guitar, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul, bought from Joe Walsh in 1969.

laurie The first series of Jimmy Page Limited Edition guitars was produced by Gibson, from mid 1995 to 1998, as a replica of his favourite instrument. Fortunately, the example that found its way into my collection is an early one made in 1995.

This project began with Gibson’s luthiers measuring and analysing every aspect of Jimmy’s 1959 Les Paul. They discovered heavy customising and unique characteristics, including an unusual hand carved neck profile that is thinner at the 7th fret than the first, whilst becoming fatter at the 12th fret again; and modified electronics allowing each of the four control knobs, two volume and two tone, to be pulled out or pushed in, enabling some extraordinary tone options.

Various combinations create Jimmy’s unique sounds.

To replicate Jimmy’s guitar, Gibson’s luthiers, skilled from long ago, carved the neck and body profile to be exactly the same.

Each guitar was hand painted individually with a true dark red that perfectly matches his and the authentic flame finish was kept subtle and elegant, the binding was ‘aged’ and the finish hand rubbed to perfection.

Grover tuners and gold hardware was installed and the proper headstock inlay added. The end result was a labour intensive masterpiece and Jimmy Page was struck by the overall quality. Each guitar was personally played by Jimmy and received his blessing before being released for sale. Sadly, only around 400 received this painstaking treatment.

This batch sold out very quickly with the guitars rapidly becoming some of the most collectible Les Pauls ever made.

To keep up with market demand Gibson then decided to introduce a few time saving build changes. So out went the time consuming hand carving and hand finishing.

The guitars built since 1996 are still excellent players, but the rare beauty, the feel of the specially carved neck and the unmistakable tone variations sadly disappeared.

More recently Gibson renowned luthier, Tom Murphy, produced another Limited Edition Jimmy Page Les Paul with custom aging, but that’s another story.

Technical Facts

Electronics

Each of the four control knobs can be push/pulled to create tone variations:

The bridge volume knob splits the bridge pickup coils.
The neck volume knob splits the neck pickup coils.
The bridge tone knob places the pickups in or out of phase with one another.
The neck pickup tone knob causes the pickups to be wired in series or in parallel.