A Near Mint Early Seventies 'Tobacco Burst' Les Paul DeLuxe Complete With Case Candy.

1973 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe.

This 12 3/4-inch-wide Sunburst Les Paul DeLuxe weighs 9.20 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Three-piece (mahogany/maple/mahogany) sandwich body, carved maple top, three-piece (mahogany/maple/mahogany) sandwich neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl trapezoid position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Model" decal. Two layer (black over white) bell shaped truss-rod cover with two screws and "Deluxe" engraved in white. Individual 'two-line' Gibson Deluxe tuners with double-ring Keystone plastic buttons with "D-169400 / patent No." stamped on the underside. Two metal-covered mini-humbucker pickups with cream plastic surrounds and outputs of 6.12k and 6.06k, each with a small black rectangular label lettered in gold "Patent No / 2,737,842". Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Gold plastic bell-shaped knobs with metal tops. Tune-O-Matic bridge with retainer and separate stud tailpiece. The pots are dated "137 73 03" (CTS, January 1973). This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition, with just two small areas of wear, one on the side of the treble horn and the other on the back of the neck behind the ninth fret. There is a miniscule amount of belt buckle scarring (nothing through the finish) on the back. Complete with the original twenty-four page hang tag booklet and the original hang tag warranty. Housed in its original Gibson black hardshell case with purple plush lining (9.25).

"The guitar design department at Gibson gave a change of style and name to the recently re-introduced Les Paul gold-top model in 1969, when the Les Paul Deluxe took its place. The Deluxe was the first 'new' Les Paul model for 14 years, and was prompted by calls for a gold-top with humbucking pickups rather than the single-coil P-90s of the existing reissue model. Gibson ended up using small Epiphone humbuckers for the Les Paul Deluxe model...At first the Deluxe was only available with a gold top, but gradually sunbursts and other colors were introduced, and it lasted in production until the mid 1980s" (Tony Bacon, Electric Guitars: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, pp. 145-146).

The Who's Pete Townshend began using Gibson Les Paul Deluxe guitars, after the Gibson SG Special that he preferred had been discontinued.