eBay Content: Cheap at twice the price...

HarrySeven

I'll take two, if you have them.

Sesh

But they only have one 

And, even if I was in the position to buy a guitar for that amount of money, I wouldn't on principal if they actually charged me £40 delivery. 

And then I saw a nice y.o.b. Tele that I will never have. (Pouty bottom lip emoji)

lewism

I think the price is an auto conversion of $123,456 (the same guitar is on Reverb for sale in $). I like the way they’ve noted that the tuners have been changed, as though everything else is exactly as it left the factory! (Which, of course, “they sometimes did that at, sir”)

Edited to add, the Reverb ad claims it’s a one off custom order. Given the general murkiness around vintage Les Pauls, any potential purchaser would have to be doing a hell of a lot of research and need to see some very convincing provenance- even if I had that I’m still not sure I’d ever get that nagging doubt that I’d been sold a pup out of the back of my mind

DB1

lewism said:

I think the price is an auto conversion of $123,456 (the same guitar is on Reverb for sale in $). I like the way they’ve noted that the tuners have been changed, as though everything else is exactly as it left the factory! (Which, of course, “they sometimes did that at, sir”)

Edited to add, the Reverb ad claims it’s a one off custom order. Given the general murkiness around vintage Les Pauls, any potential purchaser would have to be doing a hell of a lot of research and need to see some very convincing provenance- even if I had that I’m still not sure I’d ever get that nagging doubt that I’d been sold a pup out of the back of my mind

Indeed - at that sort of money, there's a lot of money to be lost. I'd be totally out of my depth with it. I do buy vintage guitars, but just stick to a dealer that I trust (I know there are a few decent ones out there) as it's totally out of my area of knowledge. 

jacksparrow

smells of the Harrisons to me.

lewism

Gibson do have the shipping ledgers for that era and mods like that would be listed against the serial number, but at that price I’d be wanting to see the ledger in person and meet the guy who signed it off! As an aside, I’m amazed that Gibson haven’t tried to make money from those ledgers. Apparently they used to send you a scan if you enquiries but I’ve read that they don’t really do that anymore. I’ve got a couple of old Gibsons and would happily pay for a good quality scan of their shipping ledger pages from Gibson. There must be loads of other people who would also pay for that for their guitars.

DB1

lewism said:, 1963

Gibson do have the shipping ledgers for that era and mods like that would be listed against the serial number, but at that price I’d be wanting to see the ledger in person and meet the guy who signed it off! As an aside, I’m amazed that Gibson haven’t tried to make money from those ledgers. Apparently they used to send you a scan if you enquiries but I’ve read that they don’t really do that anymore. I’ve got a couple of old Gibsons and would happily pay for a good quality scan of their shipping ledger pages from Gibson. There must be loads of other people who would also pay for that for their guitars.

Yes, I would do that (pay for it) - good provenance as well. Mine date from 1938, 1948, 1955, 1956,1959, 1963 and 1968 - what a great bit of reading that would be. I will try and make some enquiries to see if that's possible. 

ICBM

At the very least, either the middle pickup or its cover is not original. There’s simply no other explanation for the dramatic discrepancy in the amount of gold plating left on them or the difference in the corner shape.

How very Music Ground...

TA22GT

It just doesn't do anything for me at all. I think it is ugly and clunky! Good luck to them.

jumping@shadows

All the pre ‘60 LP Customs I’ve had and seen had the last two block inlays the same size fwiw..

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

At the very least, either the middle pickup or its cover is not original. 

The ol' A. R. Duchossoir guitarspotter book mentions a few one-off order instruments. One example combined the Switchmaster control circuitry with three P90s. (No photographs available.) The other mates three humbuckers to three pots, arranged in a line, like an Explorer. (Photograph attributed to Alan Rogan.)

If the eBay item is a genuine Gibson factory one-off, there ought to be documentation to corroborate the customer specifications. 

ICBM said:

Music Ground.

Conspicuous by their absence are any photographs of the rear of the guitar in the controls cover plate area. I wonder why?

Looking at the photograph that illustrates the selector switch from directly above, it is possible to see that the switch slot widens towards the middle of the lever travel. This is completely unnecessary for a lever switch BUT just so happens to be positioned exactly where a Switchcraft three-way toggle normally goes. 

lewism

I thought the same about the control cavity cover, but some more photos are available in this gbase listing;
https://www.gbase.com/gear/gibson-les-paul-custom-switchmaster-1957-black
I’d be interested to hear what those more knowledgeable than me make of it!

gringopig

.

lewism

Ha! You’ve been doing the same Google searches as me!

gringopig

.

EricTheWeary

It’s just bloody ugly. 

WezV

jumping@shadows said:

All the pre ‘60 LP Customs I’ve had and seen had the last two block inlays the same size fwiw..

This needs repeating.   

Certainly the width between the frets is as near as damn it, and the large last inlay is a very noticeable feature.

On the one i have here the 21st is about 1.5-2mm longer than the 19th and i think that is normal.. 

You often see the 21st fret inlay extending slightly further past the A and B string  than the 17th or 19th inlay.  If  the inlays were exactly the same length this "overhang" should always be less on the 21st fret due to string taper, but it often looks bigger or the same.  It rarely looks smaller.   Admittedly the differences in string taper are tiny and some of this will be exacerbated by inconsistencies in manufacture

boogieman

As well as all the dodgy stuff going on with this guitar, I’d also be slightly worried about the £40 courier delivering my £86,000 worth of Les Paul. 

rossi

Might be best to check up with the Chinese builder as to its authenticity.

Bridgehouse

gringopig said:

Personally I'm holding out for this:

Knobtastic

ATB_Guitars

jumping@shadows said:

All the pre ‘60 LP Customs I’ve had and seen had the last two block inlays the same size fwiw..

I agree and all the pre 1960 LPC's I have here and have seen, have this feature. However I also have a 1959 mono, stop tail ES-355 here with the same ebony fingerboard. This one has a smaller 21st fret inlay like in the picture referred to by the OP, but it also has larger factory frets so maybe the larger 21st fret inlay was only used for ebony fingerboards with the small 'fretless wonder' frets...? 

If this was a genuine custom order, or some kind of prototype, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that this smaller 21st fret inlay was something done at the factory, especially if it was ordered with the larger frets.

BTW, I saw this guitar last weekend on Justin Harrison's stand at the Veendaal Guitar Show. I didn't pay much attention to it TBH so didn't get to look at it closely.