Here’s a pretty cool guitar…

This started life as a 1952 Les Paul Goldtop and has been converted along the way to a sort of ‘54 style humbucker conversion that actually, is rather good. It also has an almost centre seam, two piece top too.

There are no breaks or repairs and the original 1952 wood is in excellent shape. It has obviously been refinished, currently in a sort of oxblood finish which looks rather good we think. We do not know who did the conversion but knowing the history of where it came from it must have been done at least 11 years ago and we have been informed it formerly belonged to one of the guitarists from The Yardbirds…. John Idan (bet that got your attention for a few seconds!).

So what’s what? Original wood, original switch and jack socket. Original truss rod cover and both brown plastic back covers. Pickups are old Van Zandt pickups which sound pretty nice and raunchy. The white plastic has been replaced as well as obviously, the tailpiece (routing holes for the original trapeze can be seen on the end). Knobs are later bonnet knob repros and pots/harness are newer.

Tuners are double line, single ring Klusons, frets are original and are actually in good shape. Neck angle is OK and it plays fine at the moment but if you wanted real low action you would need to either find a slim wrap tail tailpiece like they used in 1953 and early 54 or grind the existing one down, or do a neck reset.

It sounds really nice, it feels like an old Les Paul and also as a bonus the weight is a mere 3.43 Kg so as you can imagine, it is very comfortable to play and sings with sonorous resonance.

If conversions are your thing then this should tick a lot of boxes and will be ripe for modifying to your own personal taste. It also happens to be a very cool looker with a passing resemblance to Harrison’s ‘Lucy’…