Gibson 2002 Les Paul Studio "Fantasy Gold Top" Masterbuilt by James Macdonald

Gibson 2002. Les Paul Studio "Still Life Fantasy Gold Top 1968" Masterbuilt by James Macdonald.

Only 1 built.

James Macdonald.

From the Gibson Visual Artist Program.

James Macdonald built only 2 guitars for Gibson, one Les Paul Standard ,"The Muse" in 2000, that is on display on guitarmotel.net as well, and this Les Paul Studio.

This is the second guitar the Gibson Custom Shop commissioned James Macdonald to design and create for their then running Visual Artist Program in 2002. This is a rare and unique instrument featuring hand cut marquetry using wood veneers from around the world to create artwork that tells a story. The full and proper name of this guitar is "Still Life: Fantasy Goldtop, 1968" but has since been generally called the "Fantasy Goldtop."

The scene is the artist's assembly of some of the very coolest things of his youth- two of the ground-breaking guitar albums of the '60's are depicted. The record coming out of the sleeve actually appears to have grooves and the proper spacing between songs.

The upper left shows a "Hootenanny" strap and an old style beer pull tab. The lower left shows the fantasy guitar, modeled after the LP Standard Goldtop that Macdonald bought with his paper money in 7th grade. The guitar has a broken B string and there is an Ernie Ball replacement string show coiled and coming out of the paper wrapper. The guitar pick shown in the strings has "J MacD" inlaid in brass as a signature. Remember this is all done by hand cutting wood veneers!

The factory headstock veneer was removed and replaced with a hand cut older style Gibson logo using satinwood, the same wood used for the Fantasy Goldtop body.