Re: Les Paul gitarrens ursprung
Kul att denna tråd dök upp just nu. Förutom den prototypen som JJ Jones visade bild på som finns väl beskriven i Robb Lawrence bok The early years of the Les Paul Legacy så finns denna Les Paul prototype.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/81251340@N07/"here is a another 1951 prototype, perhaps a bit later in development with slightly different feature but still the huge maple top and massive arch-top-like neck heel. Baseball bat neck!
The story has it it was a sold to a gibson employee in the 60´s from "the morgue" and later sold to a session player that I unfortunately don´t remember the name of right now. He called it "Bell" because it sounded like a church bell and never stopped sustaining.
It apparently had a couple of owners in the 70´s and ended in this condition in the early 80´s when it was bought by a private guitar collector.
The guitar has had a lot of work done to it.
It was initially cremona sunburst, then refined in the 70´s in a bright red-yellow clownburst then stripped and finally just hand painted with lacquer, perhaps some older paint on the back underneath.
There are pics of the guitar as Cremona sunburst and as clown burst. The instrument resides today in Germany and are unfortunately in a legal dispute about the ownership. The guitar collector and owner of the guitar since the 80´s left it to a repair shop in the late 90´s but he passed away and never pick it up (understandably). Now many years later the owner of the repair shop wanted to sell the guitar but this was "intercepted" by the children and estate of the collector and they demand the guitar to be retured... big mess...
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The neck have had a reset. extra shim installed and new hole for pick guard mount.
There are a mix of old hardware from various time periods, gold nickel and crome.
The all rosewood bridge ir replaced with an ABR1.
Pickguard repaired.
Nut have had a huge brass insert in the 70´s.
Refret with a mix of frets (wider after 12 fret, really strange)
Despite all non original features it is still representing a very cool part of history and evolution of gibson solid guitars. Fun features are that the control switch is an angled one as on the other prototype but the access is from behind. The cannel between controls and the switch is not routed but drilled. The neck joint also differs from the other prototype and is an intermediate between late one with long tenons. The sharp cutaway is looking smaller than on the other prototypes as well and the waist is tighter. Perhaps they were doing many different shapes on the same theme...
The odd looking stamp on the plastic heel plate
has the lover part refilled with a touch up pen marker. Probably due to the handling at one of the refines. Above is a ES-s1 or ES-sI stamp that is fain number 1006 (Serial???) ES usually stands for Electro Spanish in Gibson nomenclature and the s=solid? 1 = the first one or it it says I = Instrument???
I think these prototypes probably looked more like ES-140, ES-175 and arch tops as they were the norm back then. with dog ear pickups, 5 ply black guards, cremona sunbursts and sharp cutaways. It was probably somethings like Gibson show Les Paul in the hunting log before his endorsement. "