The "Number One" guitar, the earliest approved
production model of the famed Gibson Les Paul electric guitar,
is being sold by his son Gene. It is estimated to be worth
between $100,000 and $150,000, Christie's says.
"I'd have to say, what's the Wright brother's first plane worth?
What's Thomas Edison's first light bulb worth? The Paul guitar,
the Les Paul Number One, was his crowning achievement," Gene
said on Thursday.
As acoustic guitars were losing their dominance, Gibson and Les
Paul got together in the early 1950s to come up with a
solid-body electric guitar.
The instrument he produced became one of the most iconic
electric guitars, played by the likes of Jimmy Page, Pete
Townshend, Jeff Beck and Duane Allman.
"And what rock and roll guitarists in the early '60s realized is
that this is a perfect rock and roll machine," Gene Paul said.
"It's an instrument that can be turned up to its full volume,
plugged into a 100-Watt amp stack amplifier. And it has the
ability to create a distortion when it's turned up that loud,
but a distortion that is controllable."
(Reporting by Alicia Powell; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing
by Bill Berkrot)
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