Chords for The Best (And Cheapest) Les Paul Copy? Burny Les Paul!

Today on Rips Presents and Gear we check out my 1990 Bernie Les Paul custom. _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ [F#] _ I just got back from Japan [G] and after searching for many many years
I was successfully able to find a guitar that I have looked for for a really long time.
This is a Bernie Les Paul.
Now, what is a Bernie Les Paul?
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Bernie was a brand under the Fernandez guitars name and Bernie [Bm] was basically their line [Dm] of
Gibson [A#] Les Paul copies beginning in the late 70s and made up until I believe about
five years ago.
They're no longer made and they have over the years they have been made in a ton of different countries [F] and
factories so on and so forth.
So they vary quite widely, but for a long time _
_ Fernandez made
_ Gibson Les Paul standard copies and not necessarily the customs but beginning in the mid 1980s about
1985 they started making very high quality made in Japan
Les Paul custom copies.
Enter _
the Bernie Les Paul custom.
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Now there are three different model numbers
but they are all essentially the same model.
You have RLC [Gm] 60, RLC 65 and RLC 70
which is what this guitar is.
Now there are all the same guitars
but interestingly enough the number designated the retail price of
the year that they came out.
So for example RLC 60 was 60,000 yen
retail price at the time and every year it would go up by about 5,000.
So by the time you hit 1990
this is now an RLC
70 because it [Cm] retailed for 70,000 yen [Gm] at the time.
Now what make these so desirable is
these are absolutely on par if not a little bit better build wise than
Gibsons of the same era.
I was actually fortunate enough to try a bunch of
Gibson Les Pauls from the late 80s and early 90s in the shop that I got this very guitar from.
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[Gm] I liked the Bernie better and also you can find these for really really cheap.
I paid
50,000 yen
for this guitar which equated to American dollars is
$470 out the door.
So this is an incredible [C#m] deal. _
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I would say this guitar weighs about
9 pounds.
It's not chambered.
It's solid.
The construction is basically identical
_ to the [A] Gibson Les Pauls of the day.
It's a mahogany neck, mahogany body.
I believe it's a maple top.
It might be a mahogany top.
I'm not [C] totally sure
but the _ VH2 pickups are very desirable.
They're
slightly over round pathy [A] kind of pickup.
They're very middle-of-the-road.
They sound really really good.
The hardware is all very high quality.
Comes stock with Godot [Dm] tuners.
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They feel great and on this particular guitar
there is no fret wear and when I got it, it was strung up with what I believe or what must have been
[G] _ 8 gauge
strings.
I mean very very very light strings for some reason.
So maybe that had something to do with the lack of wear on the frets.
I am not sure but the yellowing and aging of this guitar is just spectacular.
It's been played.
Obviously like there's a you know, there's a little wear mark on the back.
There's yellowing on the top of the neck, but there are no cracks.
It's not been [Gm] abused.
It hasn't been dropped or anything like that.
I just couldn't believe I found this in downtown Tokyo at a used guitar shop.
Now other Les Paul copy brands such as Auroville and Greco and Tokai
are also very very popular, but I've always liked the Bernie
_ brand because
_ [G] they're just they're slightly left of center.
Not everybody has Bernie on their radar.
Now over in Japan
there's all sorts of variations and years [G#] all over the place.
Mostly newer models which
_ are not that great in comparison to the [D#] old guys.
So if you can find a
vintage _
_ vintage a Bernie Les Paul, [D] generally speaking it goes for pretty cheap.
Now over here in the United States
this guitar generally goes for about $800 to $1,100 depending.
You see a lot of black ones.
I have personally never even seen a listing for a cream colored [D#] one, which is another reason why I was so excited.
And yeah, I just thought I would share this with you guys.
And I am super stoked on my find in Tokyo [A] that I was able to bring back home and [C] show to you guys.
_ All the applicable links down below in the description.
You've been wonderful.
I've been Fluff.
Thank you [G] so much for watching and I'll see you [B] next time. _ _ _ _ _
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