I bought a "real" Les Paul

The Epiphone Les Paul Traditional PRO-III has an ugly neck, but that's okay

The PRO-III comes in 5 colors. Metallic Gold, Pacific Blue, Pelham Blue, Wine Red and Ebony.

I have the Pelham Blue model. It is the lightest color option of the lot. The tradeoff to this lighter color is that you can see every single imperfection on the back of the neck. Mahogany does not take well appearance-wise to satin finishing. Since it's a semigloss and not high-gloss, grain is very visible and easily felt by the finger...

...which is what I wanted. This neck feels fantastic. But it looks ugly because it has the appearance of looking all nicked up even though it isn't.

Satin finishing makes the neck feel like unfinished wood. Very smooth, zero sticky feel, and takes very well to long playing sessions. But again, looks like crap.

Does that mean the fretboard looks bad? No. That board is pau ferro and looks great:

Something I want to make very clear however is that the reason you can see the grain so prominently on the Pelham Blue model is literally because of its color. Every other color offered has a neck look that is significantly darker on the back and hides the grain lines much better.

Does the prominent grain on my Pelham Blue PRO-III bother me? Given my fret hand isn't in pain anymore, no. Having no pain more than makes up for any appearance gripes I could come up with.

How does the guitar sound? I'll have a video posted here of that soon.

How many guitars did I try before buying the PRO-III? Let's answer that.

Published 2019 Apr 22