1999 Epiphone Les Paul Standard – Vintage Tobacco Sunburst

Today I am looking at an almost mint condition 1999 Epiphone Les Paul Standard. This guitar was purchased from a guy who hadn’t played it for over three years, so when I pulled it out of the case, I wasn’t surprised to see the strings and screws were rusty, but what did surprise me was the guitar was still perfectly in tune.

Because the overall condition of this guitar was so good, I decided to replace as many of the old and rusty screws as I could with new ones, in order to bring it back to an as new condition.

From what I can gather from doing a serial number check at the www.guitardaterproject.org website, this Epiphone Les Paul with a Vintage Sunburst was made in July 1999 at the Saein Plant, Korea with a Production Number 3309.

Now whats interesting about that is, it was during the years 1998 and 1999 that the Saein Musical Instrument Co. Ltd was presented with ‘The Best Quality Award of the Year’ by Gibson Epiphone USA…

…and looking at the quality of this guitar it is not hard to see why.

It’s pretty much a stock standard Les Paul with a Solid mahogany body and a maple veneer over a carved top.

There isn’t too much that is unique about this guitar seeing how it is still completely original (Apart from the new screws I replaced the rusty ones with), it has the standard two tone and volume knobs.

Gibson branding on the truss rod cover plate.

Dual humbucker pickups, which sound quite good. The Cream body and fretboard binding has aged nicely with that nice vintage yellowing look.

The 24-3/4″ scale, 22-fret rosewood fingerboard also has the typical Les Paul trapezoid inlays, with virtually no fretwear and no wear to the rosewood fingerboard.

The Chrome hardware, including the LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece is still in perfect condition without any signs of the chrome pitting or aging at all.

The back of the guitar has a really deep red color that you can just see the wood grain through. It is in virtually new un-played condition that looks fantastic.

The Slim-tapered neck feels great to play.

It has the standard vintage style tuning pegs with the green plastic tuning keys.

The Set mahogany neck joint is perfect, the finish around the neck joint is superb.

There are a couple of minor indents to the back of the body, but as you can see from the photos, the finish is still in absolutely amazing condition.

It also came in a hard case which is in really good condition.

I would have to say this is so far the best Epiphone Les Paul I personally have owned.