⚌No Longer Available‼ Epiphone Joe Bonamassa Black Beauty Custom Inlay, 2020

With an official launch in October 2020, the Epiphone Joe Bonamassa Black Beauty was based on a classic 1958 Les Paul Custom. In 1957, three of Gibson’s then-new humbucking pickups replaced the P-90 and Alnico V ‘Staple Top’ pickup set of previous Customs.

From its introduction in 1954 until the 1961 redesign, the Les Paul Custom had a major difference from the other carved-top Les Pauls hidden under the gloss black finish. The body is entirely Mahogany, with no Maple cap. When the original design was re-launched in 1968, the Custom was built with the Maple cap.

This Epiphone Joe Bonamassa Black Beauty is in excellent, virtually unplayed condition. It was built at Gibson’s Epiphone plant in Qingdao, China and dates to July 2020, before the official launch. It was part of a limited edition run with a custom fingerboard inlay reading ‘Joe Bonamassa’ in place of the original Mother of Pearl block markers. These models were inspected and set up in the USA. It largely follows the original materials specification, with an all-Mahogany body without weight relief paired with a Mahogany neck and Ebony fingerboard, and three humbucking pickups.

The frets are a modern medium high style, much larger than the 50’s ‘Fretless Wonder’ types – and for modern playing styles and string bending, that’s a good thing. The fingerboard on the limited edition Black Beauty features a stylized ‘Joe Bonamassa’ signature rather than standard position markers. The finish is gloss black polyurethane with an aged tint for the binding, and the metal hardware has a gold tone plating. The tuners are 50’s vintage Epiphone style models.

The wiring and switching follows the usual Gibson 3-pickup pattern, with volume and tone controls for the neck pickup alone, and the bridge and middle pickups together. Switching puts the neck and bridge pickups alone on the outside positions, with the bridge and middle pickups in the center.

The original “Nerdville CA” and Epiphone logo hard shell case is included and contains the Certificate of Authenticity booklet, hang tag and Epiphone sticker.

Joe Bonamassa is a noted American blues / rock guitarist with a collection of over 500 guitars and amps (each), totalling around 1,200 pieces. At age 12, he and his band opened around 20 shows for B.B. King and in 2009 played the Royal Albert Hall with Eric Clapton in a guest duet.