A 1968 Gibson Les Paul belonging to Free guitarist Paul Kossoff is now up for auction
A stage-used 1968 Gibson Les Paul, previously played by Free’s iconic guitarist Paul Kossoff, is currently available for auction.
Featured as part of Bonhams’ ongoing Rock, Pop & Film auction, which ends on 4 December 2024, the guitar is expected to fetch between £30,000 to £40,000.
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Originally a Les Paul Gold Top, the guitar underwent a transformation into a Burst model around 1969-1970, thanks to the skilled hands of luthier Les Tones, a founding member of the band Beckett. Tones later passed the guitar to his bandmate, guitarist Arthur Ramm, before it eventually found its way into the hands of Paul Kossoff.
In October 1972, an exchange of instruments between Ramm and Kossoff took place at the end of Free’s final UK performance at Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Mayfair Ballroom. Kossoff had damaged his own ‘59 Les Paul and borrowed Ramm’s for the encore. He apparently loved the sound of Ramm’s Les Paul so much that he agreed to swap it for his damaged guitar once it had been repaired, lending Ramm another guitar until then.
“As it happened, the following year Ramm’s guitar was returned and Kossoff kept his now-repaired Les Paul,” states the listing. “However, Kossoff remembered the guitar when, on the opening night of Back Street Crawler’s UK tour, at the Sunderland Locarno, 16 May 1975, he borrowed it from Ramm as his back-up, playing it again for the encore.”
Image: Bonhams
The guitar features a mahogany body with a bound maple top with Honey Burst refinish, a mahogany neck with bound Indian rosewood fingerboard and jumbo frets, an ABR-1 Tune-o-Matic bridge and a headstock with a ‘crown’ inlay. It is also equipped with two Patent decal humbuckers, two volume and two tone ‘speed’ controls, and a three-way selector.
Bonhams notes that the guitar has been “professionally maintained and played regularly in the intervening years”: Ramm fitted replacement nickel-plated pickup covers and ‘speed’ controls, re-fretted the instrument and had a new nut installed. Despite these updates though, the Les Paul remains fundamentally unchanged from its time with Kossoff and still bears a Beckett sticker inside the back control cavity.
Learn more at Bonhams.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
