Incredible Story: Rare Gibson LP Guitar Found in the UK

newi123

RaymondLin said:

I am feeling very Victor Meldew today but am still trying to find the incredible part of the story...

A random nobody buys a Les Paul in 67 after seeing Clapton play one (probably would be bought a Strat instead had Clapton played a Strat on stage).

Isn’t that almost every story of every young guitarist ever told on planet earth?

How is that a great story? It’s the most generic, boring one that we all have. Or is it the story of the Antique Roadshow-esq part where he paid only £50? But that was the market price back then. It’s the same story as someone getting a bitcoin for £20 10 years ago too?

Am I missing something?

Plus, yet another Burst surfaces, only log books for like 800 or so but we have like almost 2000 known ones.  I dunno, i am feeling very Meldew!

Guessing you `don`t believe it` either then............ :-) 

andy_k

I had a few thoughts while watching the vid.
The owners daughter, is apparently a teacher, who had done her own research and thought it might be worth around 5k, which is what you arrive at if you do a search for Gibson Les Paul, either on Ebay, or Google, at todays NEW prices-roughly.
If you do the same search for a 50's LP you get very different figures, and this lady is a teacher?
Secondly, Mike at ATB goes to a lot of effort to say how bad the condition is, and hasn't even plugged it in, but has checked the pickups are re wired ( not re wound ), and claims the knobs are original.
The bridge posts are both 'snapped off', has anybody ever heard of this ? Could they have been cut off for some reason?
It has been re-fretted, and needs another ? This guitar was bought second hand for £50 in 67, and played for 3 years, then put in a case in the early 70's, had some sort of wiring mods done (pickguard switch ) and still has original strings from last play time?
It certainly had a hard life, but I would not consider it to be in 'bad' condition, let alone terrible, there is no buckle wear visible through the paint on the back, and the back of the headstock still has plenty of aniline colour-but the top is very faded, it would be nice to know some of the actual playing history here, what condition was it in when the owner bought it, and how much did he play / mod it?
In the vid, there is an LP hanging on the wall behind him which looks very similar, minus the Bigsby, I wondered if that was a Murphy maybe?
I know JB is no slouch when it comes to ID'ing these things, check out the video where he is asked to verify a V against one of his own at Norms, for an example of how astute he can be when looking at these things, he clearly had no qualms about this one, and I suspect it's condition is nowhere as bad as it is made to sound on the ATB vid.
I seem to recall even Eric paid £100 for his in 65, and he couldn't find another to replace Beano, so had to borrow the Summers burst, and Peter Green had bought the other one in the shop when he replaced EC in the Bluesbreakers, Beck had one around this time, Kossoff had a couple and there can't have been too many more in the country back then, so the owner got a bargain for his £50 in 67, something weird here maybe.
Just a few thoughts, still a nice story, and there's hope left in the world for the remaining undiscovered bursts to show up still.

RaymondLin

Anyone seen that Netflix documentary call Made You Look where a couple sold lots of "art" to a gallery to the value of $80 million and they had it authenticated by experts but then discovered it was painted by some bloke in a garage?

I got to say I am skeptical too.  The provenance for this seems very ordinary and convenient.  The part about the guitar case I also know about too with dealers often keeping the case they came in to sell separately to get extra cash, I read that off this forum.

I will take the experts who has seen this at their word but like i said, I can't deny I am skeptical. 

roberty

The Independent reporting this now as having been sold for £150k

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/joe-bonamassa-gibson-les-paul-b2078320.html

SPECTRUM001

Great story, great vid, great arguments and great thread !!

I love this stuff - especially when there are some Clouseau thoughts going on. Of which, I know attic and barn finds can often be grimy, but the one thing I found weird was how dirty it was considering it has been in its case.

I dug out my old art school portfolio when I moved last year. It spent forty years in house moves, under beds, in transit and the last fifteen in a dusty unlined attic. The prints inside were still pristine. Rubbish, but still in fine condition...

As for the price paid by ATB to the owner - absolutely confidential. It would be very bad form for a shop to publicly reveal information of that kind - for many reasons. The owner may want to surprise her family, or evade CGT, or not want her neighbours to know, or be doing a deal with the press etc etc. 

Blimey, I feel uncomfortable talking £££ when trading on here - and that is small fry compared to this Les Paul. If the owner wants to shout out to the world, let her do it when she is ready.

Great thread !

andy_k

For me, the money side is irrelevant, we all know how valuable these guitars are, if original.
I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with the guitar, only that some of the facts don't add up.
A well played guitar, when put in it's case for the last time, will not come out looking like it has been left hanging in a shed.
I have guitars on stands in my room, that accumulate dust, I have to dust them when I pick them up, the ones in cases are in the same condition they were in when I put them away.
JB knows his onions, and he didn't hang around, seems they all were happy with the transaction. Expect to see another Epiphone release ( probably with a Bigsby ) when he gets to tell his side of the story.

barnstorm

RaymondLin said:

Anyone seen that Netflix documentary call Made You Look where a couple sold lots of "art" to a gallery to the value of $80 million and they had it authenticated by experts but then discovered it was painted by some bloke in a garage?

If you enjoyed that tale, Provenance (Salisbury/Sujo) is a brilliantly reported book about a similar scam on this side of the pond.

Andy79

If I was in a position to buy one of these I’d want it sent to the lab to get some of it tested some how. Science has to be your friend here. If you cannot tell one from an original then it’s only the chemicals and compounds that will give it away
 The world is full of people trying to have one over on you and some are extremely good at it. 

I agree with those who have said the story is odd and very generic at the same time. 

impmann

IvisonGuitars said:

impmann said:

I just watched the video…

it was last played in 1970
it has been refretted 
it needs a refret 
it’s had the pickups rewound
the bridge posts are snapped 
the Bigsby has extensive wear and is missing the arm
they “don’t know” if it works
its filthy yet it’s been inside a case

Im sorry… but in 1967 when it was allegedly purchased for £50, it was seven years old. When retired it was 10.
Conveniently, it’s a serial number that hasn’t been registered before (even in Gibson’s log?) but there are bursts either side of the number.
Am i the only one suspicious about it? 

I think you are, I've inspected this guitar at length and it's exactly what it is claimed to be.

Nice.

Ok - perhaps you can address my biggest concern. How can a guitar that was 7 years old when bought have needed a refret and that refret is now worn out? Especially as he was an unknown guitarist, so presumably wasn’t playing every night and the guitar has been untouched since the early 70s. The photos don’t seem to show the sort of wear to the fingerboard edges and the playing surface I’d expect. Plus there wasn’t the pick wear on the bobbins/surrounds. And if nobody has touched the electronics, who disconnected the pickguard and switch.
Plus, how has it faded so much if it’s been in a case since 1970? Greenie was still quite red in 1967 through to 1970 - and that’s a matter of record. Greenie was also supposed to have been significantly more worn than the Beano burst and Beck’s slightly odd looking one. Then you see the back of this one that’s still very cherry… 

I will bow to others knowledge, first hand experience and whatnot but, there are some elements that don’t appear quite right from the outside or that story has been doctored a little.

Blaendulais

Hattigol said:

impmann said:

I just watched the video…

it was last played in 1970
it has been refretted 
it needs a refret 
it’s had the pickups rewound
the bridge posts are snapped 
the Bigsby has extensive wear and is missing the arm
they “don’t know” if it works
its filthy yet it’s been inside a case

Im sorry… but in 1967 when it was allegedly purchased for £50, it was seven years old. When retired it was 10.
Conveniently, it’s a serial number that hasn’t been registered before (even in Gibson’s log?) but there are bursts either side of the number.
Am i the only one suspicious about it? 

Yes.

No youre definitely not.  It seems extremely unusual. The story is nonsensical.   Someones been fooled...

Lebarque

Wouldn't it be great if the 'naive' lady and her old Dad, who have enjoyed much sympathy and concern on here, have taken Mike and Joe for a ride?! I rather suspect ATB and JoBo know more than the super sleuths on here though. Who am I to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory though? Personally, I'm not into antiques and would be laughing all the way to the holiday of a lifetime/retirement with a modern Les Paul-shaped object under my arm, which would sound and play as good, if not better than this old croc.

Philly_Q

Lebarque said:

Wouldn't it be great if the 'naive' lady and her old Dad, who have enjoyed much sympathy and concern on here, have taken Mike and Joe for a ride?! I rather suspect ATB and JoBo know more than the super sleuths on here though. 

No, that's impossible.  We've watched all twelve and a half minutes of that video.

crunchman

impmann said:

IvisonGuitars said:

impmann said:

I just watched the video…

it was last played in 1970
it has been refretted 
it needs a refret 
it’s had the pickups rewound
the bridge posts are snapped 
the Bigsby has extensive wear and is missing the arm
they “don’t know” if it works
its filthy yet it’s been inside a case

Im sorry… but in 1967 when it was allegedly purchased for £50, it was seven years old. When retired it was 10.
Conveniently, it’s a serial number that hasn’t been registered before (even in Gibson’s log?) but there are bursts either side of the number.
Am i the only one suspicious about it? 

I think you are, I've inspected this guitar at length and it's exactly what it is claimed to be.

Nice.

Ok - perhaps you can address my biggest concern. How can a guitar that was 7 years old when bought have needed a refret and that refret is now worn out? Especially as he was an unknown guitarist, so presumably wasn’t playing every night and the guitar has been untouched since the early 70s. The photos don’t seem to show the sort of wear to the fingerboard edges and the playing surface I’d expect. Plus there wasn’t the pick wear on the bobbins/surrounds. And if nobody has touched the electronics, who disconnected the pickguard and switch.
Plus, how has it faded so much if it’s been in a case since 1970? Greenie was still quite red in 1967 through to 1970 - and that’s a matter of record. Greenie was also supposed to have been significantly more worn than the Beano burst and Beck’s slightly odd looking one. Then you see the back of this one that’s still very cherry… 

I will bow to others knowledge, first hand experience and whatnot but, there are some elements that don’t appear quite right from the outside or that story has been doctored a little.

Some people are very hard on frets.  I've improved in recent years, but I used to wear them quickly.  I grew up playing an acoustic with 13s in my formative years, so I got into the habit of pressing very hard.  If you are heavy handed, then you can wear through frets very quickly.  I've had to get a guitar refretted around 8 or 9 years from new in the past - and I probably only played it 3 or 4 hours per week on average.  I can easily believe that a guitar can need a refret in well under 7 years if it has been played a lot.

Also, just because someone is 'unknown', to use your term,  it doesn't mean they don't play a lot.  I had a friend as a teenager who used to lock himself in his room and play 3 or 4 hours per day.  He's a good player but he's never been in any big name bands.

BGG

I enjoyed the video and the story. 

Just don’t get why they didn’t  plug the bloody thing in ? and how was it so manky living in its case ?

Brize

andy_k said:

A well played guitar, when put in it's case for the last time, will not come out looking like it has been left hanging in a shed.

Yes, because when you cover a guitar in bacteria, putting it in a case preserves it in stasis until the case is opened again.

This was a time when even professional players generally only had one guitar. They were played hard, left out most of the time, and generally treated as tools.

Judging by the condition, and given that it had been forgotten about by the owner, I would also imagine that this guitar has spent time, in its case, in a less-than-perfect environment like a loft or somewhere damp.

Internet sleuths trying to pick apart this story based on their own experience of storing cosseted guitars in a collection of many don't really have the credentials.

Joe B will have seen many Bursts in many different states and, if you know anything about his history on the Les Paul Forum, he can smell a rat from a mile off.

guitars4you

Summarizing I know, but I dare say when he put the guitar away he probably did not know it would be for 20/30/40 years - So just stored as he'd last gigged it - The other part of this story is there was a Marshall amp in there as well but mice/rats had eaten part of it - I forget this part of the story - Someone else might add to it 

No need to be a pro player back then to do a shed loads of gigs - I'm 62 now and older FB members than me will endorse the story that back in the 60's and 70's you can sometimes do 2/3 gigs on a Sat night - Tea time slot - 8-11 and then finish in a late night bar - 3 gigs in 3 different venues - Then a Sunday mid day slot with another gig that night - Today many of us only carry out 2/3 gigs a month if that - 5-6 gigs a weekend back in the day was not unheard of - I can just about recall a Sunday lunchtime  gig or two with a blues band 

I suppose which area of the UK you live in, but I certainly recall many Derby/Nottingham based acts would travel to the North East for 2/3 weeks to do 10/20 gigs - And or the S Yorks area for similar amount of gigs in the social clubs 

roberty

Yeah it was his only guitar and probably the previous owner's too. You can knacker a guitar in 10 years. My first guitar was knackered after 10 years, some of the frets had worn down, there were divots in the fretboard

guitars4you

roberty said:

Yeah it was his only guitar and probably the previous owner's too. You can knacker a guitar in 10 years. My first guitar was knackered after 10 years, some of the frets had worn down, there were divots in the fretboard

I don't know about you, but you saw it at Bristol as I did, next to a Max '59 burst' replica - Interesting how so many issues were not accurate with the Max - Nice guitar as it was 

jonnyburgo

Not really "rare" though is it? Those pesky Harrison boys have got a storage container full of them.

lustycourtier

jonnyburgo said:

Not really "rare" though is it? Those pesky Harrison boys have got a storage container full of them.

They’ve put all their I’ll gotten gains into Harrison Jnr now…