The hand-aged Gibson Les Paul Special is a replica of the 1960 original, but an American master craftsman made it exactly the way the guitar would look today, complete with aging, cracked paint and dents from scuffs and scratches.
What's more unusual, the instrument isn't sold anywhere else but in guitar-loving Japan, where the entire limited edition series of the electric guitars are sold out, underlining this nation's never-ending affair with American guitars.
Never mind that Japan has its own respected guitar brands, including Yamaha and Ibanez. No Japan-made guitar has the ring of an American icon, and Gibson Guitar Corp.'s biggest competitor here may be another U.S. company famous for electric guitars, Fender Musical Instruments Corp.