The first Les Paul Gibson guitar – owned by the man himself – to be auctioned by Christie’s
If you’ve got $100,000 to spare – at least – you could own a piece of rock history once owned by the Wizard of Waukesha.
Luxury auction house Christie’s announced Wednesday that the earliest approved model of the pioneering Les Paul Gibson guitar will be part of its “Exceptional Sale” on Oct. 13 in New York, where the guitar is expected to be sold for between $100,000 and $150,000.
Developed by Paul and Gibson around 1951 or 1952, the guitar was owned by the late Paul himself, and according to Guitar.com, and he made personal adjustments to the instrument, adding dual output jacks and hum-canceling dummy coils inside the guitar’s cavities, among other modifications.
The “Number One” Gibson Goldtop is being sold through Christie’s by Paul’s son Gene and Paul’s longtime guitar builder, engineer and producer Tom Doyle.
““This was the most historically significant, valuable, pivotal, and important guitar to my father, his crowning achievement,” Gene Paul said in a statement.
About a decade prior to its creation, Paul pitched his design for a solidbody electric guitar to Gibson with little success. But by 1950, Fender was eating away at Gibson’s market share with its own electric solid-body guitar model, prompting Gibson to reach out to Paul to help design one.
Paul was also a valuable marketing asset for the instrument; his recording of “How High The Moon” with his wife, Mary Ford, hit No. 1 on the pop charts in 1952, and the couple hosted the TV show “Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home” from 1953 to 1960.
Les Paul Gibson guitars went on to revolutionize rock ‘n’ roll, used by legends like Keith Richards, Slash and Jimmy Page. Between his hits and technical innovations that changed music – including the development of multitrack recording – Paul is No. 1 on the Journal Sentinel’s list of the 50 most impactful Wisconsin musicians of the past 100 years.
He’s also the only person who has been inducted both in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.