lpnv59
All Access/Backstage Pass
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2001
- Messages
- 10,725
.... in this original color. Someone back in '55 may have wanted something like a Gretsch and custom ordered this. I've talked about this guitar for years but never had a pic.
In '75 a friend of mine from high school, Ronnie Tuminowski, found this rare Les Paul up in Maine. It was a completely original Les Paul with an opaque Cardinal Red top with a black back. Yellow/white 6 digit serial #starting with a 5 would make sense with the ABR. He brought it into the Harvard Sq guitar shop called the Record Garage where I worked. Once my co worker Greg and band mate at the time decided he would keep it, pretty much immediately, we converted it to accept a set of zebra paf style pickups we had custom wound by Larry Dimarzio. Thats a whole nuther Oprah as my friend Joe Ganz use to say. There was no trace of gold anywhere to be found in those cavities, and the serial number was definitely original. This guitar has made the rounds around Boston and is almost legendary. Many locals have had their eye on it. It, like my '56 gold top conversion was for me, Gregs stepping stone to burstdom. His being the Cathedral burst about a 18 months after. It next went to Bill West, who is now famous for his voice characterizations in animation and where my first burst came from. So incestuous our little scene in NE! After Billy broke the head stock, it was in the hands of punk rocker Billy Cole of the Real Kids, until it was stolen out of a rehearsal complex. Fenced at a Daddy's Junky Music and innocently purchased by a player on the north shore for a decade, and then a few dealers ending up with it to trade off. Eventually a well to do guitar collector kept it stowed away for the last 15-20 years. It went up for sale about 2 years ago and then Billy Cole petitioned for its return and I have heard thru the grapevine, the collector willingly gave it back. Nice ending to the tale of this local unicorn.
Wish I had more pics!
In '75 a friend of mine from high school, Ronnie Tuminowski, found this rare Les Paul up in Maine. It was a completely original Les Paul with an opaque Cardinal Red top with a black back. Yellow/white 6 digit serial #starting with a 5 would make sense with the ABR. He brought it into the Harvard Sq guitar shop called the Record Garage where I worked. Once my co worker Greg and band mate at the time decided he would keep it, pretty much immediately, we converted it to accept a set of zebra paf style pickups we had custom wound by Larry Dimarzio. Thats a whole nuther Oprah as my friend Joe Ganz use to say. There was no trace of gold anywhere to be found in those cavities, and the serial number was definitely original. This guitar has made the rounds around Boston and is almost legendary. Many locals have had their eye on it. It, like my '56 gold top conversion was for me, Gregs stepping stone to burstdom. His being the Cathedral burst about a 18 months after. It next went to Bill West, who is now famous for his voice characterizations in animation and where my first burst came from. So incestuous our little scene in NE! After Billy broke the head stock, it was in the hands of punk rocker Billy Cole of the Real Kids, until it was stolen out of a rehearsal complex. Fenced at a Daddy's Junky Music and innocently purchased by a player on the north shore for a decade, and then a few dealers ending up with it to trade off. Eventually a well to do guitar collector kept it stowed away for the last 15-20 years. It went up for sale about 2 years ago and then Billy Cole petitioned for its return and I have heard thru the grapevine, the collector willingly gave it back. Nice ending to the tale of this local unicorn.
Wish I had more pics!