Nash Guitars Introduces Les Paul Relics

What do you get when you take a Gibson Les Paul Standard and send it to Bill Nash? The next best thing to a true vintage Les Paul, that’s what!  But it’s so much more than a vintage recreation.

Let me fill you in on how this new relic from Nash Guitars came to be at Sound Pure.  Bill Nash is best known for his amazing USA made relic guitars based on classic Fender designs. They look, sound, and feel like a true vintage guitar, but at a fraction of the price. Because of the success on the Fender relics, customers were getting antsy for a Gibson relic as well. After a successful run of relicking several Gibson Les Pauls for his personal clients, Nash decided to create a new division that will take Gibson Les Paul Standards from his Nash Dealers and turn them into what you see here.   After Nash does his work and relics the stock guitars, you’d swear they were vintage if they didn’t still have new Gibson serial numbers on them.

Sound Pure is the first Nash Guitar Dealer to receive the authorized aged LPs. We are proud to say that we have sold the LP60 serial number NGLP-001 (yes that would be #1) and we’re sure by the time we post this, the LP59 serial number NGLP-002 will be spoken for. These are some of the hottest guitars we’ve had on our electric guitar wall in a while! We plan on sending Nash more brand new Les Pauls as soon as our LP59 is accounted for. Once we send the guitars, it will take 6-8 weeks to get them back at the shop looking like they’ve been on the road since the ’60s and sounding a lot like the sweetest vintage Pauls on the planet.

The manufacturers description of these guitars is one of the most extensive and revealing descriptions of just about any guitar we carry, and for a good reason.  They don’t just make these LPs look vintage, they sound and play amazing too!  Nash dresses and levels the frets, professionally sets up the guitar with low action and wears away the finish on the back of the neck enough for your hand to glide smoothly at just about any position. The pickups are DiMarzio Air Norton in the bridge and DiMarzio Bluesbucker in the neck. These pickups are wired to have an airy quality that is truly reminiscent of vintage LPs. One of our favorite features is the unique coil tap that is activated at certain tone knob levels and not by a click or push/pull as on most coil tap pickups. As Nash explains it, “Between 1 and 8 on the tone knob it works as a regular tone control, between 9 and 10 it shuts off the second/dummy coil. This gives you a tap without adding switches or push pull pots.”

Before we sent the LPs out to Bill Nash, we plugged them in to get a feel for how these guitars felt and played. We felt they were typical of what you get from a new LP straight off the shelf. They had some minor imperfections and the pickups were certainly in need of work. Once the LPs came back, we plugged these guitars into one of our favorite amps in the showroom, the Rivera Fandango, and these guitars played and sounded nothing like they did before Nash worked his magic! These guitars have transformed from mediocre playing and sounding to what you would expect from one of the best Vintage Les Pauls loved by rock stars and collectors alike.