Black Beauty auction controversy, JB chimes in

Why pick up 6 bursts when you can get that.........thing

A chump is hoodwinked and hornswoggled every day.  A sucker sucks up to appear sophisticated.  A fool is foolishly frauded for fun and profit fairly often...

If any part of the "story" is possibly proven provenance, it should come out in verified full detail, and only go to the Smithsonian Museum, not the auction blocks...

Rock ON & Keep The Fiduciary Faith,
Rocket

"He still doesn't charge for mistakes! "
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This article has a YouTube video about the guitar...

http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/11/1954 … e-auction/

As I expected, the final price was well below the presale estimate. Commenter in the Washington Post article complained that it should have gone higher, stating "It's sad that the Washington Post sought to discredit its historical value quoting people who would know nothing of its importance. Why are Nielsen, Bonamassa, Gruhn, Braunstein. and even Russ quotes important?"

I found this comment laughable, the people mentioned know what they are talking about, in my opinion.

Kinda confused by the folks in the article saying it isn't worth the selling price.  Someone paid that amount so has to be worth that much yea?

The guitar is a not anything but a cobbled up Les Paul Custom that Les had laying around. I wasn't trying to discredit Tom or Max or even Guernseys but the amount of revisionist history those fellas were writing in the lead up to the auction deserved a bit of clarity and perspective. Besides what the hell do I know about the high end guitar market and in particular vintage Lester Proflus models?

Remember these two names. Ted McCarty and Seth Lover.  That's all you need to know about the holy grail electric guitar.  Les was a brilliant inventor of recording techniques and a master jazz musician. A guitar maker not so much.  Because the truth is that he rarely played stock versions of his own guitar and never a sunburst model.  That was all Ted and Seth. 
And the Sunburst model with Humbucking pickups is regarded as the Holy Grail.  Not the custom or even the gold top standard models. 
History is written by the ones who write it
Joe B

I would think that originality, condition, playability, tone and the grade of the top would trump "first ever", unless it had all those qualities too.

As the story goes, Ted and Les argue over who "really" designed the Les Paul model.
From what I've heard, any guitar that Les actually played didn't have binding on the fretboard edges. He didn't like the plastic feeling. So it either didn't come with fret-binding or he ripped them off and replaced with strips of wood. crazy.

It's agreed that Seth Lover was the GUY who found a way to 'buck the hum, Les Paul claims the sound was never quite right cause of the muddy low end.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING CRAZY
OW Appleton invented the single cut solidbody way back in 1943 and Gibson turned him away, only to send him a flier years later for the Les Paul saying "we should have listened to you back then"
http://www.owappleton.com/

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
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