'Leesa'

1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard "Leesa"

This ex celebrity owned fifty-five year old Les Paul Standard 'Burst' weighs just 9.30 lbs. and has nice, fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany body with a 'lighty-flamed' solid carved maple top. One-piece mahogany neck with a typical thin early '60 profile. Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets. Inlaid pearl trapezoid (crown) position markers. Serial number ("0 19XX") inked-on in black on the back of the headstock. The top of the guitar has a single cream binding and the fretboard has single white binding. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and with "Les Paul Model" silk-screened in gold. Two-layer (black on white) plastic truss-rod cover. Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with single-ring tulip-shaped Keystone plastic buttons (stamped on the inside "D-169400 PATENT NO."). Two PAF humbucker pickups (double-black) with outputs of 7.60k and 9.14k. The cream neck pickup mounting ring is stamped on the inside "MR491" and "M-69 7" and the cream bridge pickup mounting ring is stamped on the inside "MR490" and "M-69 8." Single-layer cream plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) on lower treble bout plus three-way pickup selector switch on upper bass bout. Gold plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. The potentiometers are stamped "134 936" (Centralab September 1959). Two original Sprague "Black Beauty" capacitors. ABR-1 non-retainer Tune-O-Matic bridge with metal saddles and separate stud tailpiece. Housed in the original Gibson four-latch brown hardshell case with pink plush lining (8.50).

This is an excellent plus (8.75) totally original example of a carefully played and properly cared for early 1960 Les Paul Standard Cherry Sunburst. The top has uniformly and beautifully faded-out to a wonderful lemon shade and is strikingly unique with the grain being a combination of quarter and flat sawn and a distinctive 'eye' on the left-side, yet still having a fine wavy interlocking figure across the face. This allows the moderately figured maple top to show through from all angles. There is a small area on the back of the body by the bass waist (about 2 inches x 2 inches) where the finish is worn away down to the wood. There are a few small marks on the back and sides of the body and a few small surface marks on the back of the neck. The top of the guitar is remarkably clean with just a few insignificant marks. Overall this is one of the most memorable and visually attractive '60 bursts that we have seen. Memorable in as much as it has that unique all seeing "eye" on the left side of the top and it was owned and played by Howard Leese of Heart and currently Bad Company. Howard purchased this guitar in 1979 and it was his main guitar until he sold it in 2005.

"Anyway this guitar is on lots of Heart records – over the years I've played it in the studio all the time. I used it live with the Paul Rodgers Band many times and you can go… [riff] - a lot of people play this riff – most of the people that play it, play it wrong – I'm gonna show you how to play it properly – cause I play it for a living…" (Howard Leese).