Gibson has announced two new versions of the Angus Young SG.  The first is from Gibson’s Custom Shop and comes in a custom-designed Angus Cherry finish - kind of dark cherry.  The second version of the Angus Young SG is from their US shops and comes in a high-gloss ebony black finish.

You might remember Gibson’s original Angus Young SG featured a Maestro Lyre Vibrola tremolo engraved with lighting bolts and “Angus”.  These updates don’t have the trem bar but they do feature some nice lighting bolt inlays in the fretboard.

The Custom Shop version is definitely a bit pricey with a list price of $6115 USD for the VOS aged-cherry version and a whooping $9409 USD for the Angus Young autographed version.  The Custom Shop version is a limited run of just 250 and only 50 of those are signed.  I guess by only building a few they can demand top dollar from collectors. The Custom version uses Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates - same as what Angus has installed in his guitar.

For the rest of us there’s the USA version.  Certainly no slouch at a list price of $3617 USD but I’m hard pressed to figure out why this model is practically double the Gibson Standard SG.  I suppose lighting bolt inlays and stamping Angus on it is more expensive than I thought.  The new Gibson Angus Young SG does have Gibson 57 Classics and a super slim neck which does differentiate it somewhat from the standard SG.

We’re reminded again of how much an endorsement can matter for guitar manufacturers and it looks like Gibson is leveraging it’s association with Angus Young to the fullest.