Dating a Les Paul Custom

WiLL75

Yes, it's true. We're in love and I don't care who knows!!!

But seriously, my friend has been using me as his source to the internet to try and find out how old his black Les Paul Custom is. I thought I had found a good site where they say to date it this way

YDDDYPPP

YY is the year, DDD is the day of the year(001 is jan 1), PPP is the plant designation and/or instrument rank.

001-499 = Kalamazoo Plant
500-999 = Nashville Plant

Anyways, that turned out to be wrong because the seriel number on my friend's Les Paul is 137363 or 137368 as the last number is hard to make out. So it's 6 numbers instead of 8. If anybody can help, it'd be appreciated. Mucho thanks.

exhausted

WiLL75 wrote:

Yes, it's true. We're in love and I don't care who knows!!!

But seriously, my friend has been using me as his source to the internet to try and find out how old his black Les Paul Custom is. I thought I had found a good site where they say to date it this way

YDDDYPPP

YY is the year, DDD is the day of the year(001 is jan 1), PPP is the plant designation and/or instrument rank.

001-499 = Kalamazoo Plant
500-999 = Nashville Plant

Anyways, that turned out to be wrong because the seriel number on my friend's Les Paul is 137363 or 137368 as the last number is hard to make out. So it's 6 numbers instead of 8. If anybody can help, it'd be appreciated. Mucho thanks.

it's older. back when the serial numbers were a bit tougher to pin down. i don't know for sure but pre-70 i think.

Pacomc79

http://www.provide.net/~cfh/index.html

yoink.

it's amazing what one can find, when one googles.


you've got to wine and dine the les pauls to get any info from them. They don't just open up for anyone, you have to be gentle.

WiLL75

Thank you for the help man, I feel dumb. I got bored at work and actually found that site that you pointed me to and I narrowed the years down...

Depending on if there's a made in the usa anywhere, his is either a '63 or 70-75. He taught me guitar so I've always loved that les of his. Once I started hanging out there on weekends and jamming, I eventually got to play it. Man, sounds so sweet. The only thing that needs to be done to it is a fret job. A guy sold it to him, about 20 years ago now, in a bar for $200. That guy, or however sold it to that guy, painted it in flat black interior house paint. So over the years he eventually got it all off. The original colour is black, has a great belt buckle scratch in the back, some wear along the back of the neck, and the usual dings and scratches all over. But no major damage otherwise. For his 50th next year I'm going to ask to borrow it for a few days and get the frets redone, unless the luthier I know won't do that type of work.