I increasingly see the presence of gold-tops when I flip through guitar mags. Not that '59 bursts and replicas have lost any of their cachet, but gold-tops seem to be catching up.
The relationship between paint and wood/quality is a muddy one. Paint is sometimes used to "hide" lesser quality wood. I imagine I'm not the only person here to strip the paint off a body, only to find it was layers of plywood underneath. .But then, those are budget instruments. On the other hand, people can like top-notch wood AND a given painted appearance at the same time. So paint can simply be paint, and not a disguise for anything about what's underneath the paint. Moreover, what is cosmetically appealing with respect to grain and how it takes stain, can be entirely separate from the sonic impact of a given piece of wood. I.e., the wood might not be pretty, but the sound is fine and exactly what you'd get with a prettier piece of that exact same wood. And in the case of gold-tops, no paint whatsoever hides the mahogany that forms the brunt of the body, just the maple cap.
So is there anything about gold-tops that is in any way different from other Les Pauls with the same pickup complement? Or is this purely a matter of cosmetics?
I'm not interested in buying one, but I am interested in what people may know about these things.
The relationship between paint and wood/quality is a muddy one. Paint is sometimes used to "hide" lesser quality wood. I imagine I'm not the only person here to strip the paint off a body, only to find it was layers of plywood underneath. .But then, those are budget instruments. On the other hand, people can like top-notch wood AND a given painted appearance at the same time. So paint can simply be paint, and not a disguise for anything about what's underneath the paint. Moreover, what is cosmetically appealing with respect to grain and how it takes stain, can be entirely separate from the sonic impact of a given piece of wood. I.e., the wood might not be pretty, but the sound is fine and exactly what you'd get with a prettier piece of that exact same wood. And in the case of gold-tops, no paint whatsoever hides the mahogany that forms the brunt of the body, just the maple cap.
So is there anything about gold-tops that is in any way different from other Les Pauls with the same pickup complement? Or is this purely a matter of cosmetics?
I'm not interested in buying one, but I am interested in what people may know about these things.
This is my bandmate's '69 Deluxe that I've been babysitting
