How cool would that look in a trio with a guitarist playing a Paul.?
Nice!
Nice!
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1998 Epiphone Les Paul Standard bass
- Thread starter Bassdude66
- Start date
Just Guesses. In order
HS Heritage Cherry Sunburst. HB. Honeyburst. VS. Vintage Sunburst. EB. Ebony. TR Trans Red. Not sure about *TL.
Earlier posts I made I meant to mention that different regions or distributors got different colors or exclusives.
Japan often got nicer runs sometimes. Or got them first.
Still looks like Honeyburst.
Yep I’d agree that it’s Honey Burst. It’s gorgeous and sounds great!
I’ve got 4 or 5 Epis in Honeyburst and depending on the year and plant it can vary pretty dramatically.
But it’s not a finish you’d confuse with heritage cherry sunburst or vintage sunburst. I have an aversion to traditional heritage cherry sunburst since it reminds me of all the Norlin Era Standards that were the only choice as a young player. It’s not a bad color and the strong red is what vintage Les Paul’s looked like before they faded.
HB on the other hand resembles a faded guitar and there’s basically no red in it whatsoever. More of a straight orange brown gradient.
It’s actually somewhat like Murphy era Historic's back when he was doing regular non reliced production R Series guitars. All orange or brown. No red.
But digital cameras are weird and so are screens and red is a color that’s traditionally hard to capture and display accurately.
I would like to know what *TL is. Lemon seems unlikely. Likely Transparent something.
I kept thinking that was "HERITAGE BURST," but honey seems to make sense as well.
And not run afoul of another company's name!
And not run afoul of another company's name!
I think it would be interesting to reach out to Gibson CS and see what Thsy say. But that’s kind on the OP since he’s got the serial.
I like Thunderbirds and EB styles being a Gibson guy at heart. I should probably look for one of these. I’d be very curious what the pickup specs are and how they sound. I never see these near me so I’ve never tried one.
It looks naked without a pickup switch (to me)
I like Thunderbirds and EB styles being a Gibson guy at heart. I should probably look for one of these. I’d be very curious what the pickup specs are and how they sound. I never see these near me so I’ve never tried one.
It looks naked without a pickup switch (to me)
We did. They were the ones who said it was Vintage Sunburst, but also said they weren’t real confident about their info.
I’m told that in the pickup cavity there are markings indicating the color. At some point I’ll open it up and take a look.
https://reverb.com/en-no/item/35545...int-w-bigsby-case-japan-terada-mccartney-spec
This is what I’d call a pretty stereotypical Epi Vintage Sunburst for the era. The outer color is almost black and there’s not much gradient to the burst itself. The outer color is usually sharply defined.
Epiphone also kind of played fast and loose with specs. EG. I have a 2005 LP plain top in Honeyburst. It looks like a 1960’s or 1970’s harvest gold appliance. It’s kind of fugly and I’ve had people say it almost looks a bit green. With better pickups it plays and sounds great. The spec said that it was supposed to have a rounded 50’s or slim taper 60’s neck. I forget. With the normal radius. I had to do a fret level and nothing matched up radius wise. Some how I got a Standard with the 14 or 16° radius board and the only guitar they used that on was a Les Paul Prophecy which had entirely different inlays. So it’s not like they just grabbed the wrong board by accident and glued it on.
So I ended up with a base plain top with what was called the Speed Taper neck. Except it’s got a 50’s profile and the wrong radius.
The entire neck is off published specs. I’m pointing out stuff slid through the system undocumented.
Gibsons or Epiphones record may say one thing when what actually got shipped out was its own thing.
I named the harvest gold Les Paul Amana….. seemed fitting.
This is what I’d call a pretty stereotypical Epi Vintage Sunburst for the era. The outer color is almost black and there’s not much gradient to the burst itself. The outer color is usually sharply defined.
Epiphone also kind of played fast and loose with specs. EG. I have a 2005 LP plain top in Honeyburst. It looks like a 1960’s or 1970’s harvest gold appliance. It’s kind of fugly and I’ve had people say it almost looks a bit green. With better pickups it plays and sounds great. The spec said that it was supposed to have a rounded 50’s or slim taper 60’s neck. I forget. With the normal radius. I had to do a fret level and nothing matched up radius wise. Some how I got a Standard with the 14 or 16° radius board and the only guitar they used that on was a Les Paul Prophecy which had entirely different inlays. So it’s not like they just grabbed the wrong board by accident and glued it on.
So I ended up with a base plain top with what was called the Speed Taper neck. Except it’s got a 50’s profile and the wrong radius.
The entire neck is off published specs. I’m pointing out stuff slid through the system undocumented.
Gibsons or Epiphones record may say one thing when what actually got shipped out was its own thing.
I named the harvest gold Les Paul Amana….. seemed fitting.
Interestingly enough, the lead guitarist in the band I'm in has several Les Pauls, one that is very very similar.
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Epiphone is quite good at not being accurate in documenting what they have built. But they have built some nice instruments!
