21/09/2009
Things Money Can Buy
Another entry in a continuing series of things available for sale on the internet. Correction have been made, because obviously I can’t read.
Gordy Lupo of Gordy’s Guitars in Ferndale (Hilton and the I-696 service drive) has put this guitar up for sale on eBay.
At least online, it looks like a late model Les Paul jr. — a cool little guitar, but nothing that unusual.
But read a little more and see it’s a 1954 1952 Les Paul prototype that was sent to the actual Les Paul while he was on a tour of England so that he could give Gibson input on the design. For the guitar geeks out there, that would place this guitar among the first commercial Les Paul’s in 1952-1953 IF NOT THE VERY, VERY FIRST. The truly iconic models are those of the mid to late 50’s that most of us associate with rock n’ roll’s evolution to rock (thanks to Keith Richards and the Bluesbreaker/Yardbird’s crew of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mike Bloomfield, Mick Taylor, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page).
But seriously, a Les Paul prototype? Even if it’s not the one they initially choose to produce… holy crap.
Obviously, they choose not to follow the pattern of this guitar for their flagship model, although it would later reemerge as the jr.
Apparently, the guitar also had a floating bridge originally, but that along with some of the electronics were lost when the guitar was pulled out of the closet at the Kazoo factory in the seventies, given some “updates” and sold at an employee sale, complete with the letters and documents connecting it to Les Paul.
It’s a really cool piece of guitar history and I would guess, likely to get Gordy a pretty big check from a hording guitar legend (paging Gilmore, Nielson, Tufnel, Gibbons, etc) or Gibson itself.
Which of course reminds me of this…
Click through for more pics, including a link to a Les Paul interview where he mentioned the guitar.
Text posted at 14:55
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