Here’s a technical run down of the guitar in detail. The finish appears to be a polyester or polyurethane. Doesn’t seem thickly applied. No runs or drips or other surface blemishes. The finish has good clarity and shine. Not quite a perfect finish, there are a few minor color bleeds at the binding edges (which are hardly noticeable). This guitar was sold as a closeout so keep that in mind. The color is a sort of unique golden burst color, lightly brown at the edges. The photos for this article are color corrected to the best of our ability. This intrument has a weight of approximately 9lbs.
The body is a standard Gibson Les Paul shape with a carved, solid, hard maple top with a plastic cream colored top edge binding. The back of the body has a rounded edge. The out-put jack is mounted on a cream colored plastic plate. The wood is of good quality, though the top could be said to have “character” as opposed to being ideally figured. It’s certainly not a AAA top. We’ve seen examples of this model with nicer figured tops, so shop around, they do exist. The back appears to be 2 pieces of Mahogany with well matched grain and no unsightly knots. Elitist Les Paul Standards were, at one time, specified as using African mahogany. That specification was later changed or dropped. So for this one made in 2004, the exact genus of Mahagony is unknown.
The binding and inlays are a neautral pearloid plastic and ivaroid plastic. No excessive filler around inlays. Binding is applied cleanly (with afore mentioned very minor blemishes).
The neck is very comfortable, not too fat or thin. It appears to be a single peice of mahogany with ‘ears’ at the head stock and a black veneer on the face of the headstock. The scale length is standard for Les Pauls at 24 3/4″ with a 1 11/16″ width at the nut. The neck is attached to the body with glue using a long neck tenon. The fingerboard is Rosewood. The frets are a medium jumbo size.