Gibson Les Paul 60 burst in Toronto

ICBM

I must admit I don't like them because they are destroying a piece of history to turn a genuine (if flawed) vintage guitar into a different, arbitrarily more 'valuable' one. You can easily make a '52/'53 playable if you want to, either by fitting a Bigsby and a new lower bridge - a la Neil Young - or using one of the new Mojoaxe tailpieces.

If you want a "Burst" but don't want to pay the price for a real one, buy a replica or a Historic and have it tweaked to whatever spec you want.

But at the end of the day they're all just guitars. The prices attached to some particular variants of them inevitably attract fakes and forgeries. It really surprises me how many people are apparently willing to part with such large amounts of money for things they don't know that much about.

RaymondLin

Getting a guitar that once belong to someone famous I can understand, that's history. That I understand.I don't see anything that special paying 6 figure sums for a guitar that belonged to nobody and sat under a bed for 50 years. That's no different than a guitar that just left the factory last week. You are basically paying all that money for old wood, different spec to minor bits and pieces and slightly different guitar building methods.

Skipped

ICBM said:

I must admit I don't like them because they are destroying a piece of history to turn a genuine (if flawed) vintage guitar into a different, arbitrarily more 'valuable' one. You can easily make a '52/'53 playable if you want to, either by fitting a Bigsby and a new lower bridge - a la Neil Young - or using one of the new Mojoaxe tailpieces.

It is much less likely to happen now....a situation I am happy with.
The surge of Conversions was probably in the 80s.
I would say that there is no danger whatsoever that the remaining 52/53 Les Pauls (the majority) in collections or with players will be lost as historical items other than the reversable tailpiece option.
But it was a flawed design and I am fond of pointing out that many of Les Paul's own guitars, probably most of Les Paul's own guitars, were arguably Conversions.

ICBM

So true!

I would actually like a '52/'53 - not just because I'm a big Neil Young fan, but because I have discovered that one of the reasons I usually don't get on with Les Pauls is the steep neck angle - I prefer them flatter, and a '52 is the flattest of the lot.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine had a reissue one, which I almost wish I'd bought now... except that the neck was even weaker than usual behind the nut because Gibson had chosen the particular piece of wood badly - I believe it later fell off after a very minor knock, when the next owner had it.

The really interesting one for me is probably the very first Conversion of all - Marc Bolan's one. I would love to know what that really was. He always said it was a '52 - which was dismissed by a lot of people since it clearly had humbuckers, ToM and stopbar - but it had a very low neck angle, to the point the bridge was resting on the top... at least until he broke it and it was replaced with a Custom neck.

capo4th

For those playing along at home, with the additional new photos, here's the new list of things that are wrong about this guitar from head to toe:

 Headstock wrong size and shape. 

Zero case rash on headstock. 

Crooked "n" on Gibson logo. 

No lacquer sinkage around logo. 

Ferrules are questionable. 

Awful wet sanding and polishing job on headstock, and finish looks wrong.

 Wetsanding has caused deformation under ferrules.

 "Les Paul" logo font is wrong. 

Thickness of the "points" is too large. 

TRC is a modern one.

 Wrong nylon material for nut. Is 6/6 nylon instead of 6/4. Shape is also questionable.

 Braz board is suspicious. Inlays look wrong, fit too perfectly, and have zero aging. 

Frets are wrong. Binding seems a little thick, and nibs are questionable. 

Doesn't appear to be tortoise shell dots. Needs closer inspection. 

Neck tenon shape inconsistent with 1960 Les Pauls. 

Colour of burst is inconsistent with every other burst in this serial number range, as well as the color of the yellow. 

Wet sanding and polishing was done so badly that "acne" is present, inconsistent with real Gibson finishes. Binding scrape is badly done, inconsistent with Gibson finishes. 

Lacquer checking is inconsistent with 55 year old lacquer, and has tell tale signs of forced aging. 

Lack of lacquer sinkage on entire guitar inconsistent with 55 year old guitar. 

ABR-1 angle is wrong. 

PAFs raise questions. 

Rear finish looks suspicious. 

Zero lacquer deformation from cavity plates. 

Sprague black beauty caps inconsistent with this serial number range. 

Lack of overspray inside cavity inconsistent with vintage Les Pauls 

The consensus certainly seems to be that, whatever it is, it's not a 55-year-old Les Paul.

blueskunk

If go custom shop rather than take that risk with any 'vintage' guitar.

John_P

That's a really interesting discussion,  you've got to feel sympathy for whoever has lost out.      

There are some real experts on there who have clearly held enough real bursts to spot all of those variations.   Nice to see JBo posting as a regular fan of guitars and just wanting to join in with the chat.

capo4th

blueskunk said:

If go custom shop rather than take that risk with any 'vintage' guitar.

yep it's a real scary story and I hope it works out for the buyer. We had that replica for sale not too long ago on here. It makes you wonder how many fake custom shop strats and teles are floating about? 

Nice instruments made by professionals but not what they seem....

Skipped

That LPF thread just gets better and better.
I cannot stop myself wanting to know who the Canadian Rock Star is who thought he was buying a pristine '60 Burst for $135k. Seems a bit Reckless.   :-O

(Just to be clear I have no idea who it is....)

capo4th

I must admit to having just checked the thread for an update... 

All still up in the air.

It is a great story unless you are the man or the expert who said yes pull the trigger!

ICBM

I find it hard to believe that even a rock star with more money than he knows what to do with would be so clueless as to buy a guitar that so clearly isn't what it's being sold as. I know, these guys just play guitars and don't necessarily obsess over them the way some of us do, but come on… surely if you want to buy one at all you have at least *some* interest in old guitars, and might have seen one or two before. It just doesn't look like a 55-year-old guitar, regardless of the technical details.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the way rich people do things.

bobliefeld

Well apparently they had people lining up to buy it based on initial pics and the dealers word. I guess at that kinda level you buy it and figure out authenticity later or else the next guy in line will.