Les paul with flying V headstock?

[wellREDman]

saw an odd thing in  my local guitar shop, a beat up les paul with a bolt on  neck with a flying V type headstock marked Gibson
the shop owner swears its genuine

[Highlander]

Bolt on...?

[Dave W]

Not a genuine Gibson product, period. I don't need to see pics to tell you that.

It's not beyond possibility that someone sawed a neck off a V and a LP and bolted the V neck to the LP body, even though that wouldn't make sense. But there's never been a bolt-on Gibson LP or Flying V.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

James Hetfield's white Flying V stolen off the Master of Puppets tour was bolt on and had a Gibson logo, but it was also fake, something he found out when he tried to get and endorsement deal with Gibson. Gibson passed: Metallica was beneath them even as million+ sellers, so James and Kirk went with ESP. James had signature Explorers and Kirk had Super Strats.

[Basvarken]

Not so fast gentlemen. Maybe it was a Marauder?

[Grog]

Not so fast gentlemen. Maybe it was a Marauder?

I think you nailed it Rob........... I've recently been dealing with Marauder bridge pickups. A local seller on Reverb had a set of NOS pickups that he thought were Les Paul Recording pickups. What caught my eye was that they were probably the closest thing in a high impedance pickup that looks like the low impedance pickups. The early ones were clear, but the later pickups were black. I contacted him, let him know what he really had. He dropped the price & I bought them. There is a lot of misinformation out there on whether these are single coil or humbuckers, even in Gibson's own advertisements.   They were designed by Bill Lawrence to be high output, I believe them to be single coils. The reason I bought them..........  I've been tossing around the idea of having a double neck bass built. I have all of the guts of a Les Paul Triumph bass & I would like the guitar part to be high impedance. I would have the bass on the bottom, unlike any Gibson double neck.
I had a short opportunity to make surrounds that would match the bass pickups. We'll see what happens from here.

[wellREDman]

Not so fast gentlemen. Maybe it was a Marauder?

Bingo thats what it was, and i'm a bit in love with it, in black, with just the right amount of Mojo

[Dave W]

Well, that solves it. But I didn't mention the Marauder b/c if you've ever seen one hanging next to a real LP, you'd know it's no LP.

[gearHed289]

Not so fast gentlemen. Maybe it was a Marauder?

That was my first thought. Paul Stanley destroyed a lot of those in the 70s. He also pawned some when the band was broke pre-Destroyer.

[Basvarken]

Well, that solves it. But I didn't mention the Marauder b/c if you've ever seen one hanging next to a real LP, you'd know it's no LP.

Haha. Well, if I would have to describe how a Marauder looks, I'd say: "it's like a Les Paul with a bolt on neck and Flying V headstock"   

[Granny Gremlin]

Yep, those Marauders are pretty cool medium level guitars (Paul Stanley used one for a bit, as did the kid from Sum 41).  They were right between the top of the range S1 (used by the likes of Ron Wood - pretty much identical save for 3 Bill Lawrence single coils, same as G3 pups, but always clear covers vs that cool bridge pup in the pics above and a humbucker/dbl coil version of that same Bill Lawrence G3 pup - the zebra in that pic is not stock.... probably the pup from:) and the Sonex series on the low end.

All bolt on, flat top LP shape guitars.  The Sonex is most LP sounding, the other two are very cool though in a different way.  The Sonex was the odd one out with the 'resonwood' body , diff pickguard shape and normal Gibson headstock (also came is a weird Artist version). 

[Hörnisse]

Don't forget the much maligned S-1! 



I bought an old '72 Eggplant glo 4001 bass years ago with a Marauder pickup in the bridge position.  I restored the bass and sold the pickup.



The good news was that the crude plastic surround for the Marauder pickup used the same screw holes as the original Rickenbacker chrome surround.

[Ross W. Lovell]

Greetings All,

  Gibson made 2 guitars with Les Paul shapes but bolt on necks with V shaped headstock.

  One was the Marauder pictured by another poster.  It had a single coil and a humbucker.

  The other was an S-1 that came with 3 single coil blade type pickups arranged like a Strat.  Pickups were designed by Bill Lawrence.  They had a rotary selector switch for pickup selection and a LP type toggle that's only function was to switch to the lead pickup, no matter where the rotary selector was positioned.

  Good guitars.

  If you prefer set necks and a lighter and thinner body, look into the L-6S, they make a couple of variations.

[Granny Gremlin]

Wasn't the L-6S heavier though - due to the larger (even if thinner) body - just like the Ripper (aka L-9S, see what Gibson did there?).  Never liked the obese Les Paul look of it personally.  But we are very familiar with that model here since the original version used the beloved LoZ pickups; unique to it was the gold plating of those pickups.  .... can't actually find a pic of that version right now (apparently they reissued it recently.

Also, I love how both posts after mine (where I mention it) are like 'don't forget the S-1.' 

[Hörnisse]

You must be thinking of the L5S.