Guitar heroes actual and fictional covet Gibson’s 1959 Les Paul Standard, widely considered the finest solid-body ever made. Watch as Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) expounds on the instrument’s qualities to a clearly impressed Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) in the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.
Spinal Tap may be fictional but the ’59 Les Paul is real. The prices it sells for are real, too. Really, really real. A ’59 owned by Journey’s Neal Schon sold at auction for $350,000. When Tom Petty’s lieutenant Mike Campbell was asked about his ’59, he demurred on the price but said buying it required taking out a loan and clearing it with his wife.
Mike and Neal and all other vintage guitar hounds should be grateful they don’t play violin, as the best of that instrument commands much higher figures.
A Stradivarius violin recently sold for $11.3 million. The instrument, known as the Joachim-Ma, actually underperformed – it was expected to draw between $12 million and $18 million.
Another Stradivarius, known as “Lady Blunt,” remains the most expensive violin sold at public auction. It went for $15.9 million in 2011. Rare violins can fetch $20 million in private sales.
The $11.3 million will endow a scholarship program at New England Conservatory, the violin’s seller. The violin had been donated to the school to be sold to finance scholarships.
Antonio Stradivari built the instrument in 1714. Violins he made between 1700-1725 are the most prized of Stradivari’s instruments. The violin sold at auction gained its nickname in the next century when it was owned and played by Joseph Joachim, one of the greatest violinists of the 1800s.
Musicians speak in hushed tones about Stradivari’s creations, citing the luthier’s meticulous craftmanship and attention to detail, as well as the richness and depth of the violin’s sound. One violinist compared playing a Stradivarius to flooring the accelerator of a Ferrari after years of driving a Mazda. The list of musicians who play or have played a Strad is a roll call of classical greats including Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell and David Oistrakh among them.
The ’59 Les Paul draws similar praise from electric guitarists who love the tone, the sustain and the workmanship that made the guitar such a superior instrument. Blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa calls the ’59 the “modern-day Stradivarius” and the list of musicians who play or played the ’59 is a roll call of rock guitar greats: Michael Bloomfield, Peter Green and Jimmy Page among them.
The Strad and the Paul have their naysayers who contend the instruments’ supposed greatness is received information passed along unquestioningly. In blind tests, they point out, professional violinists couldn’t tell the difference between a centuries-old Strad and a recent model.
Fair points, but it seems akin to pointing out all the convenience and safety features on your new hybrid to someone driving a 1956 Ford Thunderbird. There are qualities in a classic, some tangible, some less so, that a seat heater just can’t compensate for.