IT'S a 'holy grail' for well-heeled guitar enthusiasts - and it will be the star of the show at a vinyl fair in Glasgow on Saturday.
The rare 1960 Gibson triple-pickup 'Black Beauty' Les Paul Custom - one of only 189 shipped by the legendary US manufacturer that year - is being offered for sale by the Glasgow-based Guitar Trade Centre for a fraction under £65,000.
The store, an independent, family-run business specialising in pre-owned, vintage and rare guitars, describes the Gibson as an "amazing investment guitar". It is willing to arrange VIP appointments at its Morris Park premises - and anyone who flies in to Glasgow Airport to see the guitar will be taken by car to the store for a personal viewing.
The shop has been having, via a third party, conversations with the Guns'n'Roses guitarist, Slash, about the Gibson. "A couple of other well-known players are looking at it at the moment", says Jim Ramsay, the store's owner.
The valuable, 10 lbs 3 oz Black Beauty is similar to a guitar once owned by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. It was stolen in Minnesota in 1970 and was only returned to him in 2015.
Speaking a few days before the £64,995 guitar goes on show at the Glasgow Record Fair at Bellahouston Leisure Centre this weekend, Mr Ramsay said: "This is an all-original 1960 custom, and it's a thing of beauty. Gibson did not make too many of that particular guitar that year. If you're in the market for a Les Paul custom it does not get better than this.
"There aren't many of these around. I spoke to a couple of [guitar] dealers in Denmark Street in London and they mentioned that the value of it would be around £100,000.
"So we have one in our own little guitar shop in Glasgow, which I am proud about. It's my own personal guitar. We've been advertising it on the market to see what interest it gets, and we'll take it from there. But there will be somebody out there who will buy it eventually, though I don't think it will necessarily be a quick turnaround time.
"It is a work of art in its own right", he added. "It's got everything going for it in terms of its age, condition, originality and historical accuracy and relevance. It's the same year and model as the Black Beauty that Jimmy Page once played. If it's good enough for Jimmy, it's good enough for any other guitarist".
The shop's website says that the high-quality finish on the guitar has "all the right wear in all the right places". The six individual tuners on the guitar headstock are the originals, and "have aged magnificently just like the rest of the guitar", while all the original electronics remain intact, though the knobs are non-originals.
Even the hard-body flight case that houses the guitar is the original one. Its PAF pickups - 'Patent Applied For' - are particularly prized by collectors.
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The shop also has for sale - priced at £17,000 - a rare 1959 Gibson ES5 Switchmaster Blonde guitar. Added Mr Ramsay: "Gibson only made 77 of them in that blonde colour. A London dealer I spoke to said he'd never seen one before".
The Black Beauty guitar came from a private seller who was clearing out his personal collection.
"We've just done a guitar show in Leeds and Bradford and I was scrolling through Facebook and came across a reference to the vinyl fair at Bellahouston", Mr Ramsay said. "I thought, if there's an event that sells records, then there will probably be people there who're interested in guitars, so it made sense to try to advertise our business in that sort of platform".
The Guitar Trade Centre was based in Glasgow's Battlefield area before moving to larger premises at Morris Park, a business park located at the former Morris Furniture store next to the M74 motorway at Polmadie.
Jimmy Page was reputed to have been devastated when his own 1960 Black Beauty guitar was stolen while Led Zeppelin were on a US tour in 1970. He took out a 'missing guitar' advertisement for one year in the bestselling Rolling Stone magazine, offering a reward - with "no questions asked " - for its return. But it would be another 45 long years before it was eventually returned to him.
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According to an article posted in July 2022 by the guitar website Stringjoy, the most expensive guitar ever sold was a 1959 Martin D18E owned and played by the late Kurt Cobain, of the Seattle group, Nirvana. It sold for six million dollars in 2020.
Saturday's vinyl fair at Bellahouston will also be notable for the presence of Billy Sloan, the journalist and broadcaster, who will be signing copies of his newly-published book, One Love, One Life: Stories from the Stars.
A spokesman for VIP Record Fairs said: "With vinyl records outselling CDs these days, music fans will be pleased to hear of the return of our record fairs to Glasgow. Memories of crate-digging at the Scottish Exhibition Centre, decades ago, are revived as VIP Record Fairs take the biggest circuit of record dealers to Bellahouston for this one-day spectacular.
"VIP Record Fairs run the major UK fairs in such places as London, Birmingham, and Manchester and will present a top selection of dealers specialising in such fields as prog rock, punk rock, hip-hop, soul, reggae and doo wop. The massive vinyl selection will range from the super-rare to the brand new with a major sprinkling of our famous bargain bins".
* Admission 10am to 3.00pm £3. Early entry: £6 at 9am. http://www.vip-24.com/
https://www.theguitartradecentre.co.uk/
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