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I have never heard of when these guys first appeared. someone once said they were mentioned around 3rd edition.

Any fluff warriors out there got a clue?

They've been there from the get-go.

I just dont remember reading about them before this edition, love to find some old fluff

They've been around since Rogue Trader, though they wouldn't receive much coverage until the Horus Heresy card game of 2003 where their baroque golden look came into play. Then of course they got more attention in the Horus Heresy novel series, and eventual models in 2016 which crystallised their current look.

The Imperial Bodyguard, released before Rogue Trader, was the proto-Adeptus Custodes. They've been around since literally before the first RT rulebook. They were renamed as Adeptus Custodes in later adverts and catalogues.

 McCraggen wrote:
I just dont remember reading about them before this edition, love to find some old fluff

There since the beginning but they were written about extensively in 2nd edition, don't know how you'd miss that.

Extensively? Where? They get one paragraph in the Codex Imperialis book; fewer words than the scribes of the Adeptus Terra.

First appeared in Rogue Trader. Mind you, they had nothing at all in common with the current iteration of crusading even-more-better terminators. They got a paragraph on p.133, a second on p.139, stats on p. 140 and gear on p. 141.
Of note on the profile, they were stated to have a minimum profile of a minor hero (4/5/5/4/4/2/5/2/8) (well, plus 8/8/8 for other mental stats that are long gone), but they're generated from basic human profiles.

They had an enclosed helmet (which had a fairly eldar vibe), a black cloak, a spear (which was actually a laser; see RT p 139), and suspicious looking leather pants.

Their other defining feature was they NEVER left Earth, and rarely left the palace. This is stated on p. 133, then repeated for clarity on p 139.

Gear-wise a 'low level Adeptus Custodes' had the following:
Knife/Sword - always
Plus 1 of the following, and a 50% chance of a second item from the chart
0-75 Lasgun
76-85 laspistol
86-90 boltgun
91-95 bolt pistol
96-97 hand flamer
98-99 plasma pistol
100 Webber

That's it. No armor, force fields or other equipment. Mostly likely a lasgun (shaped like a spear) and sword.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Extensively? Where? They get one paragraph in the Codex Imperialis book; fewer words than the scribes of the Adeptus Terra.

And practically every single thing in the codex Imperialis is relegated to a paragraph so yeah 'relatively' they are extensively mentioned.

Well I found some stuff dated 2003, amazing it goes back this far.

John Blanche has some gorgeous artwork of Cusfodes from early 2000's, about 02 then into 03 but they've been around much longer as others have said.

 McCraggen wrote:
Well I found some stuff dated 2003, amazing it goes back this far.

The general look of the modern armor goes back to at least 1993.
From the Codex Imperialis:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Filealace.JPG