There's a story behind this guitar that some may find hard to believe. Tony purchased this guitar in 1997 from Musical Exchanges in Birmingham England and from the outset the guitar sounded awesome ( this guitar was used extensively on the Rainy Days Album, the Live! Album and on some tracks from the Blue Moon Album ).

There was one problem, it kept breaking top E strings. The guitar was returned to the supplier and they "fixed it" but within a week the strings were breaking again ( around 10 a week! ). The supplier changed the bridge from a brand new guitar and the breakages dropped down to three or four strings a week.... not really good enough because this guitar was used as a main instrument by Tony. The supplier decided to order a replacement from Gibson and in the meantime loaned Tony the one that the bridge had come from. This guitar did not break strings but it had been extensively misused and had multitudes of lacquer cracks - common on Gibson guitars.

The loan guitar sounded so different to the one that Tony had bought that it was hardly usable and Tony decided that this must have been due to the misuse of that instrument. After around six weeks the new guitar arrived at the suppliers and Tony took the old one with him to collect his replacement. The new guitar looked fine and Tony was about to leave but something told him to "just checkout the sound" on the guitar.

The supplier had a Boogie Mark IV in stock so Tony plugged in, cranked the volume and.... the sound was as crap as the one that they had loaned him..... Tony immediately spoke with Gary the man at the top in the store and demonstrated that the sound was not acceptable. Gary still had Tony's old guitar ( the one in the picture below ) to compare and sure enough this guitar blew away BOTH of the other instruments in the comparison. Remember, these were exactly the same Gibson Model's ........

It was decided there and then by Tony that he was not going to let this guitar go back to Gibson at all, and he changed again the bridge from the new guitar to the one that he originally had. The supplier merely said that Tony's guitar had a wiring "fault" and that his other guitars were the way the JP Les Paul should sound (!) .... but he did agree that "the others were not playable" when compared to Tony's original guitar.

Today, the guitar will typically take out a string in around 3 hours continuous playing - not a problem if you KNOW this.

This Guitar is featured on "Guitar Lab" on "French Connection".

Here's the new Picture's  - I hope you liked the story ( it's absolutely true )  .......  the only thing is, for an old guy like Tony these things are heavy.....  you HAVE been warned....

and here's the old picture.....