1975 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe

I have to admit, I was not a huge fan of Gibson guitars at this point in my life. I had fallen in love with the feel and sound of Fender Stratocasters, but this rare Sparkle Red Gibson Les Paul Deluxe came up for sale at a reasonable AUD$950. Naturally I had to have it so I bought it, only to realise it was not that special to play, and the EMG pickups it had in it were awful.

This guitar was only made in one year, 1975, and was commissioned by the Sam Ash music store chain in the USA. They also commissioned a sparkle blue finish which ran for a couple of years more, so this guitar is pretty rare. But those bloody EMG pickups which were all the rage at the time, had to go! From here on in, I was on the hunt for an original pair of mini humbuckers to stick back into this guitar, because that is what it originally came with.

I eventually sourced a set of Gibson mini humbuckers, and replaced the EMGs. The guitar now sounded as it should, looked as it should, so I did the only thing left to do at this point which was to sell it and buy another Strat! So after spending a few hundred dollars buying the mini humbuckers, I sold the guitar for exactly what I had paid for it, AUD$950, and sold the EMG pickups for about AUD$150. Lesson learnt.