“The P-90s in it are ridiculously good. I’m still trying to work out quite why they’re as good as they are, if I’m honest”: What makes this 1957 Les Paul Special such a smokeshow?

Stu Robson, a lifelong devotee of trading up to ever-better guitars and the founder of Sunbear Pickups, recently acquired – with the financial blessing of his nearest and dearest and some judicious trades – a genuine Golden Era Gibson. So what does it feel like to reach such a milestone as a player/owner and how did he get there?

“I’ve spent my whole life buying and selling guitars and selling stuff for a little bit extra and being able to, therefore use that to get something else,” Stu reflects. “And I did that loads as a teenager and into my very early 20s, before Jeff Pumfrett [the late owner of World Guitars] left Machinehead in Hitchin.

“I used to go between Hitchin and Coda Music, and I would buy things from one place, do things up, then trade them in elsewhere. And they all knew about it [laughs].

“The first things I used to buy and sell were Parker Flys and Ibanez JEMs. At the time, they were fantastic guitars but the real drive towards them had passed and was in a lull. So I could get a beaten-up late-’80s, early-’90s JEM the previous owner had set up badly because they didn’t know what they were doing with a Floyd Rose.

“Or there’d be a Parker Fly with a fret that’d fallen off of it. I was buying guitars like that for £400 to £600 and I would tart them up a bit and sell them online, and they would go to different countries. Japan in particular, loved buying JEMs at the time.

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“So I used to trade myself up [in terms of quality of guitars] bit by bit over time. But with this particular one, obviously going up to a guitar of this sort of value, has involved years of trading up.

“I have a Masterbuilt Fender Duo Sonic, which is going towards paying for this plus a Masterbuilt Strat as well as some other smaller bits and that kind of stuff. So I think it’s worth getting some nice guitars and then using those nice guitars to buy a more rarefied vintage guitar.

“This guitar is​ a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Special. It’s all original. It’s previously had a Bigsby and a set of Grovers on it. They’re the only value-detractors on the guitar. Otherwise, it’s all stock – the only thing on it that’s an upgrade is a St Helens-compensated, replica wraparound bridge, so that’s a modern quality-of-life improvement.”

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“Apart from that, as I say, it kind of is what it is. I’d have bought it even if it had had an averagely good set of pickups in it. But, as it happens, its particular set of P-90s in it are ridiculously good. Yeah, I’m still trying to work out quite why they’re as good as they are, if I’m honest with you.

“They’re just ridiculous, which is just luck. You know, I’ve got a set of 1956 P-90s from an old Goldtop in another guitar here, which are also a great set. But you go backwards and forwards between the two and this ’57 just slays it instantly.”

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.