Tag Archive for: Black Beauty

Les Paul Black Beauty Sold

LesPaulBlackBeautySells

As mentioned in previous posts here and here, there was quite a range of opinion on how much this guitar would sell at auction. And looking at the news feeds above, even the media can’t seem to decide. Somewhere between $250,000 and $350,000USD. Much less than the forecast of $2 million.

Jim Irsay bought the guitar. Irsay is the owner and CEO of the Indianapolis Colts. He has a guitar curator, Christopher McKinney, to manage his collection of roughly 175 guitars. That collection also includes Jerry Garcia’s Tiger. Irsay paid $957,000 for that guitar.

Jim Irsay’s net worth is about $1.75 billion. He also holds guitars that were previously owned by George Harrison and Elvis Presley.

Les Paul Black Beauty

BonamassaGuitars

Joe Bonamassa is an avid guitar collector. He owns hundreds of guitars.

His favorite guitar is a ”™59 Les Paul Sunburst, a “Holy Grail” that he actually takes on the road with him.

“I tour nine months a year,” Bonamassa told Gibson.com, in a 2011 interview. “What am I going to do, come home and noodle with it on the couch? Go, ”˜Wow look at this, I”™ve got a ”™59 Les Paul that never gets used, maybe on a recording here and there.”™ I”™d rather get a nice case for it–which I did–hire an ex-secret service agent as my security guard–which I did [laughs]–and take it on the road.” In an interview with AmericanBluesScene.com, Bonamassa praised the ”˜59”™ Les Paul”™s extraordinary tone. “I have over 300 guitars, but out of all of them, that one is definitely my favorite.”

He was also asked about the Les Paul Black Beauty which is going to auction tomorrow evening. Speculation is that the guitar might fetch upwards of $2 million. Here is what Joe had to say about the guitar:

As for Bonamassa, he says he wouldn”™t pay $10,000 for it. That”™s after paying $410,000 for one of his Les Paul guitars. Those are all Standard sunbursts from 1958 to 1960.

“What it is is a carved up old Les Paul Custom that Les modified and gave to Tom,” says Bonamassa. “I think Tom has the best of intentions with the guitar but Tom, because of his closeness to Les, may have an unrealistic value in his mind.”

One more sleep before we find out for sure.