The Gibson Peter Frampton Signature Les Paul is made by the Gibson Custom Shop based on the three pickup 1954 Les Paul Custom given to Frampton by Mark Mariana (a fan) in 1970 in San Francisco. That guitar became a favourite of Frampton but was presumed lost in 1980 in a Venezuelan plane crash. Gibson’s Custom Shop reissued it in 2000 as the Peter Frampton Les Paul.
The Gibson Peter Frampton Les Paul has a high-gloss ebony black “black beauty” finish (the original 1954 guitar had been refinished like this in 1960), gold-plated hardware, multi-ply body and headstock binding, and a decorative mother-of-pearl “split-diamond” headstock inlay and block position markers in a Richlite fingerboard. There are a few new modifications requested by Frampton.At Frampton’s request, however, including a slim-carved neck profile, and a weight-relieved mahogany body and carved solid maple top. Hardware includes a classic Tune-o-matic bridge and stop-bar tailpiece. Pickups are three exposed humbuckers of Frampton’s own specification—a 57 Classic in the neck position, a 57 Classic Plus in the middle, and a 500T in the bridge. The 3-way selector switch is custom wired so that the middle pickup is always on. The outer pickups share volume and tone controls, with dedicated set of volume and tone knobs for the middle pickup.
In 2012 the original 1954 guitar that was presumed lost in the 1980 plane crash was found, restored and returned to Frampton. Gibson Custom Shop resissued a faithful reproduction of this original in 2015 as the Gibson Peter Frampton "Phenix" 1954 Les Paul Custom.