Vintage Greco Les Paul Replica

(Click on any picture for a larger view.)

I don't have all the details on this guitar yet. I've determined that the body was made by a Japanese company called Greco back in the 1970s, not sure of the exact year. This determination was made through numbers on the back of the potentiometers and analysis of the routed cavity for those components, as well as the braided wire used for the signal routing.

One interesting feature are trim pieces around the mini humbucker pickups. I don't know the full story about the trim, but I have only found two other guitars online with this feature, a Greco Goldtop Les Paul replica and a 1971 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe.

One story I got from a luthier is that during a transition to the large humbuckers there was a mix-up with regard to the amount of pickups ordered and the number of LP bodies routed (too many) to fit the larger pickups, so they used a surplus of mini humbuckers to complete the guitars. The trim pieces (which are actually just tacked on with finish nails) were used to cover the extra space from the oversized hole. He noted, while looking at this guitar, that it was pretty interesting that a company making a replica would bother replicating a factory goof that affected such a limited number of guitars.

The only thing drastically different about this guitar and other replicas is the headstock. It does not match the Greco headstock or any others I've seen. The neck has also been broken and repaired at the headstock. I've since learned that this was fairly common with some of the earlier genuine Les Pauls. Greco made the replica so good that they even matched the flaws of the original. :) Those are Grover machines by the way.

I figure the neck was actually replaced at one time, during that repair the luthier matched the finish exactly (maybe he even refinished the back and sides of the guitar) because there is a trace amount of clear finish on the base of the neck that matches the guitar to a T. The neck has been subsequently sanded down (included the back of the headstock) most likely to facilitate the repair of the break near the headstock.

This is a beautiful guitar and still plays great, it's played regularly too. I'm still doing some research to determine tha actual age of this guitar, and any other info, so if you have any knowlege of the Greco LP replicas, and the ones with the trim around the pickups, please contact me at band @ drewvics.com (remove the extra spaces in the email of course).