After years of dreaming, I finally have a 59 reissue Les Paul and what an LP it is. It's a great match for one of my favourite Les Pauls 9 0597 as seen on page 44/45 in the book Beauty Of The Burst. My shot is a little blurry but here's the comparison.
And here's some better shots from a range of angles in different lighting conditions to show off the really nice even, thick, tiger flame and no bald patches!!!
I got this from Jim at Route66 Classic Guitars. He did me a great deal and got it to me here in Australia with a minimum of fuss. I've had my eye on this on their site for months and saw it go on Ebay a few times, put on hold for someone but it never went and hung around. It must have meant to be.
She's a great player, nice thick neck although with soft shoulders, almost v-like in feel. I have been more used to my Futura of late with a massive baseball neck. Tone wise, she's very much the rock-beast although able to be wound back a little for some laid back bluesy noodling. There's a complex array of under and over tones in there and works beautifully with my Marshall / Fender stereo set-up. More than any other guitar, it just "feels" right in the classically simple setup of guitar -> cord -> amp (AFD100 in this case)
As you can see from the pics, there's lots of lame but it changes depending on the light but from the most important view, looking down when you're playing, she's a flame-mosnster!!!
Other guitars were sacrificed for my 59 but it was worth it.