Since playing a couple of Historic Series '59 Les Paul Reissues (a.k.a "R9s") lately and being mightily impressed, I had started seriously considering looking around for one to buy, if the price was right. That's a big "if"! Between some healthy pedal sales (I'm backlogged through May at the moment) and selling some current gear, I should be able to swing one pretty readily, if I can keep the price to ~$3K or less. Problem is, most of them seem to go for $4,500 and up.

Anyway, I had been looking at eBay every few days to get a sense of what's available for what kind of price, and one turned up late last week with a $3000 min. bid, $3300 BIN. Problem was, unlike most of these guitars, it lacked the Gibson "Certificate of Authenticity" and the original brown "Lifton" HSC was no longer with it, either. Since most of these guitars seem to be bought by collectors who seek these things, it's price was substantially lower. The guitar was also stated as having some degree of playing wear, further depressing its value to these collectors. Normally,I wouldn't have been interested, but the seller listed the location as "upstate NY". That opened the possibility that I might be able to actually see & play the guitar, if his location wasn't too far away. So I sent him an e-mail and--lo and behold!--he's only about a half-hour drive away.

Next, I posted some of his photos at the MyLesPaul forums to have some "expert eyes" check it out. Good news--everybody who looked at it agreed that the guitar was genuine and consensus was that it was priced fairly for the condition & lack of CoA.

The next problem was that there was no way I'd bid that kind of money on the guitar without seeing it, and I couldn't get there before the auction ended. So I had to just hold my breath and hope it didn't sell. It didn't. So I called the guy and am planning to see it tomorrow. He's even agreed to give me "first refusal". So we'll see where it goes....

As I mentioned, he had posted some nice photos--here's a couple: