Les Paul Standard question

[Psycho Bass Guy]

There's an auction for a Les Paul Standard on ebay that I saw that leaves me with some questions in regards to the pickups. Specifically, the pickups look too small, and they also look placed too far back. I took a long look at my Epi standard, which bridge aside, should have the same layout and the differences are pretty striking. I'm not saying that the auction is fraudulent in any way. I just want to know if anyone can explain the visual differences. 

[uwe]

We need a pic! On a Gibson Les Paul Standard the pups are pretty far back, that is the position they settled with after prototypes featured pups closer to the neck. And the pups are guitar size humbuckers with TB Plus innards dwelling inside. They pick up all strings evenly and there is no issue with lack of bass, those basses roar and might be in fact a little much for some types of music. 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I don't have any pics of mine, so I borrowed these from Deathshead's old thread where he was selling his. Mine is identical to it.
 

[Dave W]

The auction pic looks normal.

I recognize the seller's handle, he used to post at the Pit years ago as LPBass. His name is John Maysenhoelder.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I'm not saying that I think anything is wrong with the auction. I'm just curious about the differences between the pickup size and position of earlier LP Standard basses versus the one in the auction. I have seen identical Gibsons to mine, so it's not just an "Epi thing." I guess what I'm asking is if anyone knows when Gibson changed the specs on the Standard and what exactly they are supposed to be.

[Dave W]

Every Gibson LP Standard I've ever seen has the guitar size humbuckers. Not sure about pickup positions.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

If the pickups aren't smaller in the one being auctioned, the body looks bigger. I know I'm crazy, but I've had my pills and they still look different!

[uwe]

You need to get off that reality-enhancing medication real soon! Hop off the drug train!!!!



That is a perfectly standard Standard. The only changes the Standard model ever underwent were 1. replacement of the three-point by ze Wärwick (early nineties), 2. removal of the Bartolini TCT active entrails (mid nineties - together with the deletion of the DeLuxe) and 3. drilling Swiss cheese holes into the body ("chambered") sometime in the early noughties. Pup size and positions remained the same, correct intake of prescribed medication herewith assumed.  

And I can vouch for the seller. He's not cheap, but not a bullshitter and knows his LPs. I bought my 5-string LP DeLuxe and my 4-string Meshell Ndegeocello single coil LP Custom model from him. He "grew out of" playing LP basses several years ago.

That is a nice honeyburst specimen, but pricey as a BIN.

Uwe

[Dave W]

He "grew out of" playing LP basses several years ago.

Does that make you the Peter Pan of LP basses? 

[uwe]

I think LPs are great basses, but I'm not really an LP guy. And I'm indeed out of the age where I would play them hanging underneath my crotch which is a must with LPs if you want to look cool. SG bodies are too small for me too, with an EB-1 or Höfner I look utterly silly. TBirds, Explorers, Rics, Ripper/Grabbers and even Jazz Basses are more my thing.

[Barklessdog]

Nice looking grain on the bass. The pickups look right to me.

Mine

[Psycho Bass Guy]

If you look at the pickup position on the Epi, the neck pickup is roughly the width of the pickup itself away from the fretboard. On the one in the auction and the one pictured above, the distance from the fretboard to the neck pickup is roughly double the width of the pickup. Do you seriously not see that?

Also on the Epi, the fingerboard joins the body at the 17th fret, on the others, it joins at the 16th.

[Dave W]

The Epi is 22 fret, the Gibson 20, which would explain the difference in appearance. The positions may be identical, I'm not sure. But Uwe's saying there's been no change in position between earlier and later Gibson LP Standards.  I don't think he was referring to the Epis.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Mystery solved: it IS an "Epi thing."

[uwe]

I know mothing about the Epi LPs except that I have a neck-thru prototype that is all-maple and sounds like a humbucking Ric. Pups on that one are closer to the neck indeed.