Gibson has forever engraved its name in the hall of fame of guitar, from jazz to rock, blues and metal. Founded in 1894 by Orville H. Gibson in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, the company has revolutionized the guitar world with technical and aesthetic innovations such as the humbuckers or the Flying V, Explorer and Firebird shapes. With ambassadors like Charlie Christian and Slash, or Tommi Iommi and, of course, Lester Polfus, Gibson crosses the ages and musical styles, and stands out as a must-have brand of guitar, both electric and acoustic.

When the copy is better than the original... No need to sell your house, cows, chickens and kids to buy a vintage '59 Les Paul! No seriously, we're excited when it comes to the Murphy Lab, but it's for excellent reasons, all of which are exemplified in this Gibson Les Paul '59 Slow Iced Tea Fade Murphy Lab Heavy Aged: the craftsmanship, the beauty of the tone, the elegance of the instrument, the care in the finish, the refinement of the details, and by Jove! It sounds delightful.

It's a Les Paul 59, and as such is built with a two-piece body of beautiful aged and dried mahogany, which is covered with an outrageous flamed maple top. The mahogany neck has an Authentic '59 Medium C-profile, the selected Indian rosewood fingerboard features 22 Authentic Medium Jumbo frets, and the pickups are a pair of Custombucker Alnico 3s. Tom Murphy and his team went into great depth, and everything from the checking to the rust on the bridges to the scratches and wear on the lacquer makes it look more vintage than the real thing. Except that it is brand new.

If the handling doesn't offer any surprise (it's a typical Les Paul), we realized while plugging it in that it had a rather strong personality. It is of course a matter of sensitivity, but it seemed to us that it "dictated" to the amp the dynamics with which it should retranscribe the nuances of the playing, or simply the tone. We first tested it in a Marshall and a Friedman - which remains the same world - and it had a bite that we first attributed to the amps. Then we plugged it into a Divided by 13 and a Fender and realized that it was the guitar that was causing it.

Basically, this Gibson Les Paul '59 Slow Iced Tea Fade Murphy Lab Heavy Aged is exactly what a vintage model would sound like with all the little details accumulated to make it "one of those guitars"; the ones we still talk about 60 years later.

2 years warranty from our workshop.