SOLD! - 1957 Gibson Les Paul Custom "Black Beauty" Alnico-V / P90

This guitar proves that you don't have to have PAFs in a 50's Les Paul to get into guitar heaven :-) This thing is WILD!!!
 
The Gibson Les Paul Custom was first introduced in 1953 as an upgraded version of the Les Paul Model, which is what the Goldtop was known as before 1958. 
 
The first version of the Custom had a black finish, which Les Paul himself requested because he wanted an elegant guitar that “looked like a tuxedo.” Other upgrades included an ebony fretboard with square pearl inlays; fancy binding on the top, back, neck and headstock; and gold plated hardware.
 
The early version also had a P90 pickup in the bridge position and the new Seth Lover designed Alnico V pickup with rectangular pole pieces in the neck position. And unlike the Les Paul Model, the Custom didn’t have a maple top with a mahogany back but was instead made from solid mahogany.
 
In 1957 Gibson changed the Custom, dropping the two single coil pickups in favor of the newly introduced humbuckers. Almost all of these Les Paul Customs were made with three pickups, although a very tiny number were made with two pickups. 
 
This here is one of those very rare two pickup Alnico V / P90 guitars...
 
The neck is a super nice full 50's neck. The fretboard and frets are in stellar original condition. The original finish lights up under blacklight and has quite a lot of buckle rash, play wear and checking throughout. The back of the neck has a light overspray and at the back of the headstock there is a very small hairline crack repair, only visible with blacklight.With its 4.0Kg it is at a reasonable weight for this era as well. The guitar has the original pots, bumblebee capacitors, Alnico V Square Pole Piece neck pickup, P90 bridge pickup, tuners and hardware and comes with a very cool 1950's Lifton case with green lining, which is not original to this guitar.
 
This is one beast of a guitar and its no wonder that in the early 70's it was the main axe for Keith Richards. Later on guitar players like Lenny Kravitz, Craig Ross and countless others rocked these guitars like no other!