Gary Moore’s Gibson Signature Les Paul

This is the first official Gary Moore signature model issued by Gibson. It was released in 2000 and produced until 2002. Gary himself used it often alongside his vintage Les Pauls.

The guitar was mostly based on a ’59 Standard, although it did feature some very noticeable differences. The body was finished in amber burst and the neck featured the same profile as a ’59, but the guitar had no binding on the body nor on the neck. It was also equipped with a pair of then newly developed BurstBucker pickups, although Gary’s main guitar which was actually a prototype, featured a pair of Tom Holmes pickups instead.

I use Tom Holmes pickups sometimes. On one of my signature Les Paul models, I’ve played around with different ones. Some new pickups are really good. I mean, if you can’t get a good sound today, I think there’s something really wrong with you!

Gary Moore Still Got the Blues – Again!

Based on the quote above, Gary possibly used a few of these guitars from 2001 onward, but almost every gig around that period seems to feature the prototype model with Holmes pickups. That guitar is easily identifiable since it’s the only of the bunch to feature pickup covers (stock models came with exposed zebra in the neck).

It is of course possible that Gary requested that his personal guitars had chrome pickup covers, but by looking through videos and photos of the guitar that Gary played from 2001, it all seems to be one same guitar. There’s a very distinguishable dark patch on the lower horn of the body where the flames on the wood appear to be less accented, and it is unlikely that the two guitars had this same unique feature.