The Gibson Ace Frehley "Budokan" Les Paul Custom (made in 2011) model is based on the cherry sunburst, three-pickup Les Paul Custom Ace played at the 1977 KISS concert at Nippon Budokan in Japan. The Gibson Custom shop produced in a limited edition of 50 hand-aged guitars signed by the artist, with a further 100 hand-aged guitars, and 150 guitars treated in Gibson Custom’s VOS process. These models aimed to be a faithful reproduction of Ace Frehley's “Budokan”  based on careful examination of the instrument itself.

The first Gibson Ace Frehley Signature model was this Gibson Custom Shop Ace Frehley Les Paul Custom made from March to July 1997. Less than 300 were made in total, to a design based on Ace's 1970s cherry sunburst finished Les Paul Custom with three humbucking DiMarzio pick-ups. The Gibson specs for this model state two DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups (DP100) and one DiMarzio Dual Sound pickup (DP101). Some of these guitars were supplied with DiMarzio PAFs (DP103) perhaps due to difficulties supplying the DP101s and DP100s.

The production version of the Gibson Ace Frehley Signature Les Paul was made from August 1997 until January 2001.