We will have to see what this auction will bring! I'm just happy we got to see this guitar in better-resolution photos! 🟢My Website: www.troglysguitarshow.com ❓Private Help Sessions: troglysguitarshow.com/help-appraisals/ 👕 Merch: teespring.com/basic-logo-4245?pid=211 🎸New Guitar Day Program: troglysguitarshow.com/ngd/
I was the stage hand for several show with Les in the mid seventies in San Francisco. He had a white les Paul with custom appointments and the lo z pickups and a goose neck for his microphone . Attached to the Bigsby was the Paulverizer a black box with a few buttons and a multi pin cable. He set his amp at the back of the stage with the top covered and during performances his wife sat by and did something . We mic’ed the speaker and we’re told to stay away and the amp was locked up very night in the office. He did his live recording multitrack live bit but it was all show biz. We recorded the sets and it was the same tracks every time. I had the job of taking his guitar back to the dressing room it was ok weight the neck was large and the strings were flatwound and at least 13s if not 14s, old school. Les was very pro and nice and kinda chill, he was having a good time.
Answer to first questions by custom appointments I meant it had the same features as a Les Paul custom. This is for Dile Dutur, Les Paul invented multitrack recording and as part of his performance he would , with the box on his guitar record multiple tracks and play along with them as they played back, like we do now with a looper. In Les Paul’s time this appeared to almost magic. My point was that he wasn’t actually recording live but was using the same pre recorded tracks. Google Les Paul , live, paulverizer, multi track and you should find a video of him demonstrating it. Man , I wish millenniums knew some history.
It makes me sick when I see a guitar sell for 5 or 6 figures especially when these guitars were out there not that long ago, like in my parents lifetime.... 😐
@@joshuahymer15 59's but if you are willing to go to auctions and your rich you can get them cheaper. Rick Neilson bought on last year at auction for 215 grand. He got a good enough close look it also to make sure it had not been frankensteined.
Les Paul guitar has been sold at auction for $930,000 through Christie's in New York. The Goldtop was the first of its kind to receive Paul’s approval, becoming his main performing guitar in the early ‘50s.
Les paul was a mad lad! He did to Gibson's what people would more readily do to fender's. He just routed them, plugged them into vacuum cleaners, added microphones....etc...he just didn't give a shi#! He just wanted his guitar to do something and made it happen without any precautions or cares!
The Best clean guitar tone I’ve ever heard was a 1954 Epiphone Zephyr, and it had a D Armand pick up stuck in the neck from the factory. That plugged into an early 60s Princeton is pure auditory bliss
Back when Epi's were still Epiphones, & cherished by Jazz players. Such a shame Gibson slowly phased them into a "budget brand". Those old, real Epi's, & even those from the first years after Gibson bought them out, are fabulous guitars. Highly prized.
Supposedly that neck pickup is a real Dynasonic DeArmond pickup. Gibson wasn’t too happy about Les changing the pickup to that, so they invented the staple pickup over the neck 1-2 years for the Les Paul Custom models. That’s what goes around on forums though, I think Doyle confirmed that as well
Considering Trogly’s reputation as a good seller, honest reviewer, and someone who takes very good care of vintage/highly valuable/historical instruments, I don’t think it’s totally out of the question for him to one day document any guitar of any extreme legendary status regardless of if he owns it or not.
Yeah but I would rather see somebody review it that can actually play half decent. I mean anybody that’s been selling and collecting guitars for as long as he is should be playing better than that. It’s pretty obvious to me that he has a passion for guitars but he didn’t quite have the natural talent. So a guitar buying and selling business was born. All I’m saying is that if he was that critical of his own playing as he was about everything little thing on a guitar, shipping jobs, or manufactures choices for their guitar parts or models.... well he might have gotten somewhere. I mean the oldest videos that he has are eight years old. And I’m pretty sure that he should play better than that if guitars have been his passion/hobby for that long. (and that’s with me giving the benefit of the doubt that he started making videos about his vintage guitars about the same time as he started playing..... which I’m pretty sure he didn’t do.)
@@Hipsters_N_Hippies oi oi oi, don't diss on the almighty Trogly broski. He's got to juggle his business, his regular life, and his family. Sure he ain't THE BEST player, but if you MUST hes in talks with legends (JJN comes to mind), he could easily enough get a guest demo for it. Let hopefulls be hopeful
PRICE REALIZED: $930k... Music instruments I follow have more than doubled in value over the last 3-4 years... when was the black beauty of Les's auctioned for $530k? My guess for this one would have basically been that, plus a simple inflation factor of +40% year over the last five years or so...
We've no idea who will buy it and what they'll do with it. It would be nice if it was shown off to the public at least for a while by the next owner. You never know... stranger things have happened.
It'll get there after a rich guy dies and his heirs donate it/sell it to pay off debts. That's generally how things like this make it to museums. You should know, however, that the chances of it being played again are actually lower in a museum collection than in some wealthy jackass' collection.
In terms of wear, this guitar settles the case that modern ‘relic’ finishes are totally unrealistic and overdone. Also, Austin, you should read ‘The Birth of Loud’, a great book on the early history of Les Pauls. I’m actually surprised you haven’t read it.
I worked on several Les Paul Recording models. Les Paul put low impedance pickups that went directly to recording equipment. The coil is most likely a hand wound transformer to match the low impedance pickups to normal high impedance amps. That's how the LP Recording's were designed, a matching transformer.
Rick from Pawn Stars had his guy check it out and then offered $75 for it. It is nice, but the market for guitars has gone down. It needs new strings, it takes up a lot of space and might sit in the shop for a while. Oh and also he needs to pay to get it framed.
Tom Doyle did a workshop at our local library with his wife they both are amazing players and have great stories to tell of their many years working with Les Paul
The round thing with the multiple terminals is an impedance matching transformer and not a switch. The route for the pickup switch rear cover was clearly round. A sharp chisel in skilled hands could have easily extended the route for the enlarged pickup switch cover.
I met Gene at the Iridium Jazz Club in NY in 2007. I was walking along Broadway and noticed a neon Les Paul headstock in the window of the club and then that Les Paul was playing that Tuesday. I couldn't believe that I would be able to see the legendary Les Paul. I bought one of the last tickets and was sat at a table and then started chatting to a guy at the mixing desk to ask him whether Les would be coming out that evening to meet guests as I'd heard he often did. Got into a conversation with him, he gave me a red guitar plectrum, assured me Les was in the mood to come out that night and then told me he was his son. Sure enough, Les came out at about 1am for a chat and photos. Amazing experience.
Fun episode! Doc Kaufman should be as well known as Seth Lover. He was the "K" in K&F ...Kaufman and Fender, which after three years became just Fender. He also designed the tremolo for the Stratocaster so he is REALLY under-remembered. Although the business relationship ended he remained close to Leo until his death. Cheers!
The opening was adorable! Also, perhaps you could get into the same deal as music is win (just with less clickbait, knowing both of y'all's videos) He's had hands on time with guitars he could never afford for videos, so maybe you could review and document guitars loaned to you without buying them as part of the preservation and documentation efforts?
When he played that Clapton $1.5 million guitar (with EVH's pick!), the only thing I could think of "you're wearing short sleeves?". Handing back a guitar like that, covered in arm sweat, I'd implode! Srsly though love his channel, I just try to handle guitars I can't afford with a "I was never here" approach. TBH I'm not a fan of Clapton's music but his donating guitars to charity for auction? That's superhuman.
@@BaconatorJames around 1989 or 90, my old bass player took me took a music store. He was, of course there for some new piece of "Must Have" bass equipment. (Which he used about 10x then the novelty wore off.). They had a beautiful blue ES335 hanging on the wall. The price tag was $4K! Way out of my reach. I stood & looked at it. A store employee told me, to try it. I honestly had him take it off the hanger & hand it to me. Absolute monster of a guitar. Played it about 4-5 minutes, handed it back. So sweet, such great tone. I told the guy "Even though I work for Boeing, I still can't afford that beautiful guitar." He knew I was telling the truth. My bass player came over said "Home, you should buy that!" I pointed at the tag. He understood. Lmao. That was a sweet guitar.
@@bluesingmusic3443 There's always gonna be one that got away. I love 335's, but I'm 5'9" & they feel massive. I've got two ES-339's (one Epi, one Gibson) so they're more my style. The semi-hollows rarely change, so you're gonna get that 335 someday.
@@BaconatorJames I've got a 335 copy. I immediately did a fret level, changed the bridge,tuners, bought 2 better pick ups for it ($12 but they're 1000x better than what came on it) gave it a set up. I was surprised such a cheap guitar had a 2way truss rod. It's decent guitar for the price. It records well, but given enough equipment an old Kay, with a "bow & arrow neck" would be okay. Almost bought an Epi 335 about 12 yrs ago, but couldn't stand the neck. (I know they're a lot better now, but the price has tripled. They were $299 Back then.) I'm 6'3" so they're okay for me. My main guitar is a 1992 USA Fender Telecaster. Absolutely love it. Of course when I was HS I remember Gibson 335s were around $400, still an incredible sum, for me. My biggest regret, is in 1988, I was working for Boeing, a guy had a Gretsch Country Gentleman he was selling for $500!!!! My ex wife bitched & complained, about me spending that much $$$. Didn't matter when I told her, we could pawn it for that much. Any way you notice I said EX wife. LoL. Sorry such a long comment.
@@bluesingmusic3443 Not a prob, that's a great story! I only started playing 3yrs ago so I'm a total shit player - but I've got 5 guitars so far & love them all. I keep thinking I should try to get one REALLY nice limited edition guitar, store it, play it every few months, but make absolutely no scuff marks - keep it 100% original. Imagine if "grandpa" had bought a 1959 Les Paul but never played it, left it, new in the case, to you "I never played it, you can have it". You'd get to meet Slash, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Perry, Jeff Beck, etc, etc - and their accountants. I don't think some (ex) wives understand the value & resale power of quality guitars. They don't depreciate (especially if they're American or Japanese made) unless they're damaged. That's why I try to get American made, in case I have to sell one, it's fast & you can at least break even if it's limited edition. Would've been nice to get the Gretsch! I'm gonna put a "Duesenberg Les Trem 2" on my ES-339. I want to keep it light but have concerns it won't fit in its (brown pleather hardshell) closed case anymore. That '92 Tele - that sounds like a great go-to. I had an American Special Tele but wanted humbuckers (Shawbuckers) & got a 2018 Tele Deluxe ('Troublemaker'). I'm too worried to put scuff on it, which is why my American Performer Strat is my go-to. Amazing what fits us best, price be damned.
I agree with you on the value but we’re also in the era of the $6 million dollar Cobain guitar and also lots of rich people looking for places to park their money. Lots of investments are ridiculously inflated right now.
@@g.koch. Joe has a bunch of pricey items for sale right now ... without touring cash, he's probably raising the ransom for this guitar as we speak (he's sold 2 vintage LP's in the last couple of months).
Lmao!!!! I wouldn't have paid $100 for Cobain's guitar. Who the fuck is he? A flash in the pan that was around for a couple of years and then offed himself. Cobain.... bahaha!
@@JokersWild70 I agree with you in regards to how you feel about Kurt Cobain and his music, I never was a real fan either. But you gotta admit that he’s a pretty popular and influential guy in popular music.
@@patrickmccutcheon8860 Yeah, he was. I was stationed in Tacoma when the whole grunge thing hit, but I just didn't get into Nirvana. Alice in Chains was my favorite band from that era.
Considering that this guitar actually was Les Paul's workhorse for many years. And he did many of the the mods himself. I would think that this is a special case where an item garners a heftier price than it would otherwise having belonged to such a notable artist.
Not the guitar news I was expecting you to cover this week, but a cool video none the less. Can you talk about Dimebag's Estate suing Dean Guitars next? Major Drama on that front.
I had a chance to play it at Christie's. It played like butter, but the vobrola prototype thing was weird and it could only bend up. Also it didn't wanna stay in tune because of that same vibrola thing. There also was Les Paul's personal Ampex 307 tape machine that came in the same lot that he used to record his early albums with.
Looking at the wiring from the back, the third knob appears to be a blender for the high and low Z outputs. The fourth component would be a barrel resistor. The line level (regular) output jack is wired with the grey wire (actually two wires; one grey and one black in the same grey insulator) to two consecutive pins on the same end of the resistor coil, relaying signal while effectively bypassing the resistor coil. The low z jack is connected to one end of the resistor coil with the big red wire on the same pin as the output for the line level output and to the other end of the resistor coil on an opposing polarity pin with the white wire, passively providing the impedance (resulting in low z signal compression) for the low z output. The red and yellow wires on the input side of the resistor are signal coming from each volume knob. The black wire between them on the resistor is a ground tied over from the blend knob, which is tied over from the volume knobs and tied in with the ground you see coming from the bottom of the body. The light green and blue wires go to the 3-way switch.. The dark green and thick black, to the dummy load. There also appear to be a couple of wires attached to a solid state capacitor (brown ends, black body, white stripes) which seems to be attached to the blend knob; probably to smooth out the signal sweep of the blend knob and keep it from making a "pop" sound at each end of it's sweep. The paper capacitor would have done the job of treble bleed just fine on it's own. In addition, I see one ear of the blend knob appears to have had a tab added on to accommodate more ground connections for the dummy loads.
The extra component in the back looks like a mini octal tube socket, the kind you would use for a 12ax7. My guess is he used the tube socket as a terminal strip to solder things too. I’m betting the pins on the front are also soldered where he wanted it to go. It’s probably how he is connecting the dummy coils to the other pickup wires so he can turn the dummy on and off with that little knob. I’ve seen little rectifiers in that shape in old solid state amps like Standels, but they usually only have 4 solder tabs not 8.
Guitarist magazine has a good online video with Les's son explaining the mods. Originally it only had the 2 chicken knob volume and tone controls on top and the TOP input jack beside them. You can see they are spaced evenly. The SIDE jack was the one he added, and it was to give low impedence, which is that that round thingy inside the cavity is for.
Should be able to hear it on Recordings Les himself did ...utube, Spotify etc... shouldn’t be too different if set up right. LP was a great guitar player and if this was his number 1 it cant b too bad... but
I believe the mystery knob is a rheostat, taken from a lamp dimmer switch, put to a novel use; it seems to be in series with the second tone control. He could adjust his clean like a dimmer switch with it. Just maybe. Les was obsessed with a clean and even tone. Fascinating work.
I have a 61 Guild Starfire w/the dynasonic pups & it is tone heaven! These are some of the best singles ever (IMHO). Fender acquired the rights & built them for a while, but they were not the same, good but not as good.
You would be surprised what a skilled craftsman can do with a nice assortment of properly sharpened and angled chisels and a few different types pf hammers.
In the article I've read they gave an estimate of $100k-150k, which I thought was surprisingly low. I could totally see someone like Bonamassa pick this up.
The little canister in the control cavity with 8 solder pads is a transformer, probably for impedance matching. It's connected to both output jacks, so the guitar probably has a Lo-Z output and a High-Z output, instead of using a switch to select the output impedance. With a setup like that he could feed one output into the mixing console or tape recorder and the other output into a standard guitar amp, or do whatever else his inventive mind desired.
Les paul's instruments are priceless!!! It's a shame a lot of people are thinking this guitar is junk but don't understand that Les was an innovator and continued to innovate until his passing. The Gibson Les Paul would not exist without Les Paul himself! Multitrack recording would not exist without Les Paul! You favorite musicians would not exist if it wasn't for Les Paul! A lot of of things today would not exist if it wasn't for Les Paul! How can you even put a value on someone who was the Thomas Edison of our time? total shame and disgrace.
I agree. Lots of tech wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for Les and sad that a ton of folks didn't care or even knew when Les was still alive. wish I could of met Les when he was around.
...back in about 1973/74 (in rural UK) I saw one of these with unbound neck and dot inlays on the fretboard ...it was confusing to see at the time, it didn't look like the current gold top Les Paul Deluxe ...about £250 ($300) at the time, lol
Doc Kauffman was an old partner of Leo Fender, actually, and built some lap steel guitars and amplifiers with him under the K&F brand, before he made Fender
You're the only one who is correct on this thread. Gold tops didn't show up for a few years, and it was Les's idea, because Mary and Les wanted some classy looking guitars to play on their TV show. The first production Les Pauls were oxblood color, allmost appearing to look like black beauties. The bigsby and the ABR showed up later also. All of these guitars are in Les Pauls collection, which numbers at about 220 guitars. Les customized most of the guitars to his liking. He was inventing stuff till days before his death. Les Paul and Leo Fender invented the electric solid body guitar. Nobody really knows who was first. That wasn't either man's intention. They loved the instrument, only.
true. the log is such a cool frankenstein of a guitar. would be cool to make one but couldnt bare the thought of destroying a guitar to do so. sawing the wings of a guitar, you know :/ then again it would make for an even cooler guitar.
FYI the neck coil is a Rowe De Armond 2000 under a modified cream cover. The dummy coil is merely a wound bobbin with no magnets wired transverse to the active coil in order to cancel the "earth" hum. The vibrato unit was the Doc Kauffman unit found on early Rickenbackers. The small selector knob is a primitive vari-tone with different caps to "dry-out' the sound.
Yes, of course. These will both be welcome additions. Not to mention I’m trashing that case and getting a gig bag. It’s just more convenient for my son to carry to school.
Just as a heads up for anyone thinking of buying a LP Recording ... the pickups are low impedance but most amps of the day were high impedance ... the ORIGINAL cable that came with the guitar, had a converter built into it so you could plug it into an amp instead of the mixing board or recorder. I saw many of these in pawn shops in the early '80's and none had the stock cable included, so you couldn't even demo it. I would have one in my collection, if not for that.
No one yet has mentioned the string spacing on the nut, especially the 4th and 3rd string being so close and the outer strings being so far into the fretboard - there's something suspicious about it. I can't believe that a precision player like Les would have played any guitar with such bad string spacing. Thoughts anyone?
I started building a replica of the Log guitar in 2015, and I had to reverse engineer the tremolo. There were only pictures of it on his guitar, and internet was failing me. Then like a month later I discovered the Kauffman Vibrola patient! That patient year is crazy. I gotta say I was a little disappointed it wasn't Les Paul's idea, but I'm fairly sure he built his from scratch.
Right now the celebrity of Les Paul is still strong in the minds of us older folk. Aside from me , a lot of older folk have lots of money. Selling this guitar now is a good move while the "celebrity" is strong. This thing could "take off" into the stratosphere if a bidding war develops amongst all these rich old folks. lol Love the video Trog. keep us posted eh ! :)
Les Paul the man very much preferred and used the Gretchen Dynasonic pickup for the neck position. Gibson could not allow Les to use a Gretchen pickup on a Les Paul guitar, as such his use of the Dynasonic pickup drove Gibson’s development of the AlNiCo Staple pickup. I theorize the pickup on this #1 Les Paul is actually a Dynasonic pickup with a P90 cover over the top of it. I agree with Les, a Dynasonic or Staple pickup in the neck position of a Les Paul guitar is indeed a wonderful thing.
A friend of mine's father played rhythm guitar in Les Paul's band. Les gave him one of his first two guitars. I have had the pleasure of playing it. It is like the one at 2:05 in the video. I have a 1980 wine red Standard.
Oh by the way you should get a DVD copy of the PBS documentary “Les Paul: Chasing Sound”. On the 2nd bonus disc there is a feature of Les showing what he says is the first Les Paul guitar that Gibson gave him. It has been routed to within an inch of its life and was later sunbursted, presumably by the Gibson factory. He talks about the necks being at the wrong angle and how the factory sold a couple thousand of them before fixing the problem a year later. Personally I think the footage from the Colgate Comedy Hour shows the two earliest LP guitars that Les and Mary used. One has binding and the other doesn’t (This is the footage where Mary shows off her prowess on guitar and just about shows Les up in the process).
Les had a pile of goldtops that he used for experiments. His #1 from 1954 until the Personal was built for him in 68 was the prototype black Custom he used in the TV show he and Mary Ford had. He constantly tried different electronics and wiring and usually had several in different levels of modding. His 54’ custom had a large cavity in the top and one between the pickups with dummy coils. I know he didn’t like the first goldtops with the low neck angle which is what the custom fixed.
I have found some interesting things on pawn shop crawls. This would be a real find. But, what would be the Excalibre guitar? A Chet Atkins Marttin? Robert johnson's Sears and Robuck mail order? Steve Jones' White Les Paul? Ear of the beholder, mate.
Johnny Shines said Robert liked Kalamazoo (the old Gibson less expensive brand.) Yet in one of the 2 known photos he's got a Gibson 00. (Of course Johnny was talking some big stuff. Like Robert invented the Blues, the chords, etc.)
Volume, tone, and rotary impedance switch. Top Jack was stock hi z. Bout Jack was lo z added by Les. Routing was done by Les with a hot screwdriver and a hammer.
Les Paul was also known to put microphones on his guitar. It was placed on the top edge that would be facing him when playing the guitar. So the knobs may have had a roll in that. He did take the microphone off eventually so he may have left the knobs alone and left the stuff in the cavity. It does look like there was something there if you look along the edge on one of those pictures.
The quotations around the phrase "number 1" referenced around 4:20 into this video, likely do not mean what you think they mean. Les Pauls were not serial numbered in the beginning. Shipping records show a delivery to Geib and Co., then case builder for Gibson. This is thought to have been a body and neck blank, delivered for design and fit for the new model. The next listing is to Les Paul. Two guitars, believed to be one for less and one for Mary, we're shipped. No serial numbers or other identifying information is recorded in the shipping log. These are believed to be the first two production Les Pauls but they wouldn't have been marked as such.
That alternate style pick guard carries carries a slight shade of the original prototype Las Paul assembled at Epiphone in the Astoria section of Queens which he dubbed "The Log". Do you want to know what would be great? It would be great if whoever ends up purchasing this thingamajig ends up bringing it your way, Trog, just so you can review and demo it. Maybe not a foregone conclusion, but I will take a wild guess that so somebody that does have at least the amount of money it will end up fetching could also afford to bring it to you.
"Just saying" but the "half quotation marks" as you call them are still quotation marks. they can be used interchangeably. literally used the say as square brackets, curley brackets, and parenthesis are used. single and doubles are used when need multiple variables are uses within a single statement.
It is a very cool and historic guitar, and I think it won’t get past 750k, but who knows, I really hope the auction will surprise me, and damn Les was way ahead of his time with these mods!
One of the coolest Gibsons I ever saw was one of the first Memphis ever made. It was on a traveling gibson bus that was a mobile museum.... I never knew that was even a thing until it pulled up in the parking lot of my work... crazy.
I think maybe that strange knob near the trem is the pickup selector? The std 3 way switch up top is a dummy, he just left it there and used it’s cavity to house that dummy coil. Just my 2 cents.
In the forties, Doc Kauffman was a business partner with Leo Fender in the K&F Company. It was the predecessor to Fender. K&F made lap steels, and probably amps. Leo went off on his own, and the rest is history!
that was a dearmond in a p90 housing. early gretsch guitars used dearmonds as well but called them dynasonics. supposedly those staple pickups were gibsons attempt at cloning dearmonds.
I owned one of the first 50 Les Paul's. The set up is one of the trapeze tail piece, and the strings go under the bridge. This prevents a player from controlling extraneous string noise with a palm mute. One of my first bidders was a museum in France. The original case is worth quite a bit. My father the original owner took off the gold and repainted it red. Of course this destroyed the value. Just my 2 cents.
According to what I have read...Les hated the original Tailpiece. I've played a 52 and it is cumbersome; can't imagine more than a set, if that, with it.
Museum piece definitely, but I wonder how playable this would be? It would be cool to see & hear Bonamassa play it and even better give us a review, but it seems like it would have those fretless wonders, which might be truly fretless at this point given the wear on them. Plus that bridge is kinda yucky.
Mary’s white SG was actually a Les Paul model when it was made. Said Les Paul right on the truss rod cover. I think Gibson took off the name for SG around 60 or 61 after some disagreement about it with Les. And Mary could really play that thing!
Keep in mind part of it was Gibson never really made what Les wanted, he never wanted a Maple cap he wanted it full mahogany, and as he stated in the video Les never liked binding. The SG Les hated it apparently.
I read the Christie's description and they say it's Les Paul's first "production" modal. "Christie’s announces Les Paul’s own personal ‘Number One,’ the very earliest approved production model of the famed Gibson Les Paul electric guitar which monumentally changed the development of Rock’n’Roll in the 20th Century will be featured in The Exceptional Sale on October 13 in New York.
