Trying to identify a 70s Gibson Model

Yep - a Les Paul Recording model...

 

I think it's not the Recording that was hollow with offset cutaways. It had a name like Les Paul Personal, I think.

 

That one is a Les Paul Signature.

Like this:

http://www.jmskn.com/gbsnLPSig.jpg

 

Sounds like the Signature, like Unburst says.

I always wanted to find one.

 

Yep it's a Signature - sorry, went off the top of my head...

Those pups are low impedance Lawrence-designed units, right?

 

I got an old Les Paul Signature in sunburst. The weird thing is that I cannot track a serial number on the guitar???? Anyone got one with a serial? If yes, where it is???

 

They are low impedance, not sure who designed them.

I believe they made some with regular pups too.

 

I had the (possibly dubious) distinction of owning three of these -- two guitars and a bass. They're offbeat, but pretty cool. The guitars initially used the oval-shaped low impedence 'buckers as seen on the LP Personal and LP Recording, but with cream covers. They quickly changed to a switchable (via separate input jacks) low/high impedence pickups that were rectangular, roughly the size of minihumbuckers (still cream colored); most of the ones you'll find are like these. In addition to a standard three-way, volume and tone, they had an in-out phase switch and a rotary three position parametric EQ. All very state of the art for the '70s. The EQ postions could be described more or less as thin, medium and fat. I left mine on medium 90% of the time. But overall, this was a very versatile guitar and if you could only have one guitar, you could do a lot worse. The pickups were fairly low gain, though, even in Hi-Z mode.

Most LP Signatures were goldtop, but some bursts were available. They're quite comfortable to play as the neck is set deeper into the body than on a 335, i.e., not sticking quite so far out into left field. The deeper cutaway on the treble side took care of the upper fret access rather well.

Quality during this era was generally spotty. Quite a few Signatures will be stamped with a "2" beneath the serial # on the headstock, indicating a finish flaw of some kind. The serial # may also appear on a label inside the f-hole, I forget.

Of the two Signature guitars I had, the goldtop was clearly better than the burst (wish I had that one back). I forget which was which, but one had a maple neck and the other a mahogany, which must have accounted for the difference. Signatures, like 335s, can also vary in weight quite a bit.

But the best of all was the bass Signature, of which I was the original owner circa '75. That was a killer instrument and I would still have it if it hadn't been stolen many years ago, alas. I still keep a lookout for it, a beautiful and very rare ice tea burst.

 

Great info, thank you! Mine is a sunburst with a maple neck, it feels very "vintage", love it! I would love to find some more info on those weird plastic pickups. Is a mini-humbucker (by Seymour Duncan) a direct replacement?

 

>>Is a mini-humbucker (by Seymour Duncan) a direct replacement?

Don't know, but here's a Seymour Duncan page with the dimensions of the minihumbucker:

http://seymourduncan.com/products/dimensionpages/sm-1.shtml

You'll to measure the Low/High impedence pickups to see if they would be a direct fit.