SOLD Vintage 1979 Memphis SP-200-3
MIJ Matsumoku / Les Paul Special
Brass Nut, Brass Saddles
Set Mahogany Neck / Rosewood Fingerboard
Bill Lawrence-Style Hot Rails

Up for sale is a vintage 1979 MIJ / Matsumoku MEMPHIS SP-200-3 Les Paul Special. This guitar is a higher-end from the Memphis lineup, with more expensive features like Brass nut & saddles, set neck, Rosewood FB, Bill Lawrence-style PUPs, and higher-quality mahogany tonewoods. Matsumoku guitars are among the very best of all the vintage MIJ guitars, are still great-playing and great-sounding guitars even to this day -- even though they have not been in production for over 30 years!!

The Les Paul Special has some things I have never seen before, like the headstock joint is not the typical scarf joint the MIK guitars normally have, but rather they use a dovetail joint!! Also, the Volume + Tone control layout is different -- with the 2 knobs on the left being Tone / Vol for the neck PUP, instead of the normal 2x Vol. It makes sense when you think about it, but it is still pretty amazing that they didn't simply copy the Gibson layout.

The quality of the mahogany in the neck is excellent, and the guitar has a medium profile neck that is very comfortable to play. The body is made up of very tight-grain mahogany, and even though it is made up of multiple pieces, it is quality tonewood material, and very dense, with an overall weight of the guitar being 8 lbs., 4 oz.

The Bill Lawrence-style PUPs sound very good, and have high output so you can drive a tube amp nicely into distortion. Frets are at about 50%, and still have plenty of life remaining. There are no dot markers on the side of the FB, but instead has a solid color where the binding would normally be.

The guitar is in good condition, with some nicks and scratches here and there, but overall in clean condition with no issues, and it plays great and sounds great as well.

SOLD Please check out my additional listings for cool & unusual Electric Guitars, Pro Audio, Ameritage Pro guitar cases, and we are actually the world's largest manufacturer of 10-String Classical Harp Guitars, with over 500 guitars sold over the past 10 years. Thanks for looking!!!