Rock Star owned 1956 Gibson Les Paul Custom Black Beauty Alnico-V

We are selling this stunning looking, playing and sounding 3.8Kg Black Beauty for the legendary Fredrik Åkesson from the Swedish prog metal band Opeth, who personally owned and used this guitar, selling it only to finance his upcoming solo album.

* Comes with full provenance and a signed COA !!! *

* signed Bees In A Jar certificate of the guitar
* signed Bees In A Jar certificate confirming the provenance
* certificate signed by Fredrik
* original photo signed by Fredrik
* Opeth LP album signed by Fredrik
* handful of Opeth / Fredrik Åkesson picks

Fredrik is one of Swedish top heavy metal guitarists and a current member of Opeth. He has also played in Arch Enemy, Krux, Tiamat and Talisman and for the debut collaboration between Fredrik and Ghost, Fredrik was invited to track lead guitars for Ghost's official cover of "Enter Sandman", featured on The Metallica Blacklist" album.
 
This actual guitar was used live and in the studio many times by Fredrik as well as on album recordings such as Opeth's critically acclaimed studio album "In Cauda Venenum".

The guitar only had one owner from 1957 (serial number is one of the last ones from 1956) when it was sold brand new in Sweden (it has the famous MADE IN THE USA export stamp on the back of the headstock just on top of the serial number). Back in the 80's it was sold by a music store in Norrköping to a famous Swedish session guitar player who owned it up to 2003. After that 2 other guitarists owned it before Fredrik bought it. By then the guitar suffered a "whiplash" smiley on the back of the headstock, which was professionally repaired back in the 90's.

Besides this repair, the guitar is 100% original to the bone with untouched solder joints!

So, what about the guitar itself? This axe proves that you don't have to have PAFs in a 50's Les Paul to get into guitar heaven :-) This thing is WILD & ROARING with a 8.78K and 8.35K Ohm output on the pickups!!! 

It has a nice and shiny black nitro finish in very good condition with some long checking and craquelé, a beautiful dark ebony fretboard with pearl inlays in great condition, fancy binding on the top, back, neck and headstock and gold plated hardware. And of courds it has a screaming P90 pickup in the bridge and the famous Seth Lover designed Alnico V pickup with rectangular pole pieces in the neck. And unlike the Les Paul Model, the Custom doesn't have a maple top with a mahogany body but it was instead made from a solid slab of mahogany! 

The neck is a very comfortable 50's neck, not as massive as some of the '53 or '54 models but more like a '59 so it sits nicely in your hand and it plays effortlessly. The fretboard and frets (professional refret, original frets in the case) are in great condition. The original finish lights up under blacklight and has some play wear and checking throughout but nothing that catches the eye. The top back of the neck and headstock were oversprayed/refinished due to earlier mentioned "smiley".

With its 3.8Kg this one could be categorized as a "lightweight" for a mid 50's Custom!! Most of them tip the scale at 4.0Kg and over. The guitar has untouched solder joints with the original pots, capacitors, Alnico V Square Pole Piece neck pickup, P90 bridge pickup, waffleback tuners with perloid tuner buttons and hardware and comes with the original black pebble case with gold/yellow lining with in it a few old pouches, the original frets, a wrench and the original key to the case!

This is one beast of a guitar and its no wonder countless of rock stars have had one of these guitars in their standard line-up!