“Almost nobody can afford a 1959 Les Paul”: Mark Agnesi on why Gibson wants to make the most vintage-accurate guitars possible
The price tag of a proper original 1959 Gibson Les Paul puts it firmly out of reach of the vast majority of guitar players. Only 643 Les Paul Standards were ever shipped in 1959, so their extreme scarcity – and legendary status in the rock world – means these guitars, when they hit the market, command six-figure price tags most budgets would wince at.
So how can guitar companies give players on more typical budgets the feeling of landing a vintage instrument without having to sell their house in order to do so?
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The vintage guitar market remains strong, with many guitarists seeking instruments that look and feel like they’ve been extensively played in. But again, real vintage guitars are pricey, so many companies offer pre-aged models – guitars that are brand-new but made to look old.
Gibson, for example, has a dedicated division, the Murphy Lab, which specialises in artificially aging its electric and acoustic guitars.
“We don’t relic guitars; we age guitars and we try and age them to specific levels of wear with real examples that we see in the wild,” Gibson’s Director of Brand Experience Mark Agnesi tells Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto in a new podcast episode.
“Anything you can do to make a new guitar feel like – we call it the vintage guitar ownership experience. The feeling like I have a $700,000 ‘59 Les Paul in my hands, but when I open the case, I feel like this is the one. That’s the feeling.”
Agnesi says owning a real original ‘59 Les Paul is “unobtainium for almost everybody”, so the brand looks to create a similar experience for a fraction of the cost.
“Not everyone can afford it,” he continues. “Almost no one can afford an original 1959 Les Paul… So what you do [is] try and give the most amount of people the experience of when they open that case, they go, ‘Holy shit.’ That’s what the GIbson Custom Shop, and specifically the guitars coming out of the Murphy Lab, that’s what they’re trying to do. And I think they’re doing a phenomenal job.”
Agnesi says he himself has been fully converted to vintage-accurate guitars: “It’s all that I can own now. Once you get a couple of them, it’s like I need to get rid of all [of my old guitars] and replace them with the exact same thing [but aged].
“After playing vintage guitars for a decade, it’s hard to not have the feel of the neck [where] that binding has been rolled by somebody’s thumb going over it. Or that feel and texture of lacquer checking on the back of the neck.
“To me, it’s a lot more to do with the feel of the back of the neck than how cool it looks or how much paint got taken off the body. For me, it’s about the feel of the neck, and the binding roll – there’s no crisp edges anywhere. It just feels like putting on your old blue jeans. To me, that’s the most important part of an aged guitar.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
