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Products Electric Guitars Les Paul Gibson Custom
The Les Paul Behind One of the Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time!

Like any great Les Paul Standard, the Don Felder "Hotel California" 1959 Les Paul starts with great wood. Gibson Custom selects figured maple for the two-piece top to replicate the look of Felder's own iconic 'Burst, and joins each set to a select, lightweight, solid one-piece mahogany back. Way beyond merely recreating the look of the original instrument, however, this maple/mahogany pairing perpetuates a tonewood match made in heaven: a best-of-both-worlds palette that gives you the perfect blend of maple's clarity, snap and bite, and mahogany's warmth, depth and richness.

A one-piece mahogany neck is glued in with the preferred long neck tenon for superior resonance and sustain, and carved to match the neck on Felder's own '59 Les Paul Standard. Taking all this tonal goodness to your amp of choice are a pair of BurstBucker pickups, Gibson's most accurate PAF recreations to date. It's all anchored with the rock-solid pairing of a Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece, and topped with a set of vintage Kluson-style green-button tuners. And with a guitar that sounds and feels this good, you want it to look perfect, too.

To get the Don Felder "Hotel California" 1959 Les Paul just right, Gibson Custom has painstakingly formulated a unique "Felder Burst" finish, which accurately matches the mellowed, sand-hued fade of Felder's own '59 'Burst. Reproduced in nitrocellulose in a hand-executed process that involves several steps, the results are then treated to either meticulous hand-aging by Gibson Custom (150 guitars, 50 of which also will be signed by Don Felder), or Gibson Custom's acclaimed VOS process (150 guitars).

All told, it's a guitar worthy of its namesakes: one of the greatest guitar albums of all time, and player who laid down the leads that helped to make it so. All guitars come with a black, plush-lined Gibson Custom hardshell case, a Certificate of Authenticity, and full owner's manual and adjustment literature. Each also is covered by Gibson's Limited Lifetime Warranty and 24/7/365 Customer Service.
Body and Finish
Made from the classic tonewood combination of carved maple top and one-piece mahogany back, and dressed in a faded nitrocellulose "Felder Burst" finish atop a figured maple cap, the Don Felder "Hotel California" 1959 Les Paul embodies the original '59 Les Paul on which Felder recorded all of his leads for the groundbreaking Hotel California album.
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A neck made from one piece of solid mahogany is carved to an accurate, chunky, rounded '59 profile and is glued into the guitar's body with a deep-set long neck tenon, a joint known to aid strength and resonance. The neck is capped with a rosewood fingerboard with aged acrylic pearloid trapazoid inlays and 22 medium-jumbo frets, and its headstock is back-angled to the traditional 17 degrees.
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Pickups and Electronics
A pair of BurstBucker humbucking pickups – a BB2 in the neck and a BB1 in the bridge – accurately replicate the tone and performance of the original PAF pickups in Don Felder's '59 Les Paul. They are routed through high-quality CTS pots for volume and tone, with "bumble bee" tone capacitors, and a Switchcraft three-way toggle switch, and a Switchcraft output jack.
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Like most classic late-'50s Les Pauls, the Don Felder "Hotel California" 1959 Les Paul carries the legendary complement of Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece, accompanied by a set of vintage Kluson-style tuners with green "keystone" buttons and stamped-steel covers plated in nickel. Its strap is secured by Gibson's traditional aluminum buttons.
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