Bob Marley (1945-1981) was the first reggae artist to attain international superstardom. He was often seen onstage with a heavily modified Gibson Les Paul Special. Specials had first appeared in 1955.

In 2002, Gibson’s Custom, Art, and Heritage division produced a run of limited edition replicas of this instrument, one of which is shown here.

Like many performers, Bob Marley customized his guitar and he did this by replacing the original bridge/tailpiece with separate units, and substituted a aluminum pickguard for the factory-fitted black plastic one, adding a second piece of aluminum around the pickup selector switch on the guitar’s upper bass bout. All these features were faithfully reproduced on the 2002 guitar.