The 1959 Gibson Les Paul Is The Holy Grail Of Electric Guitars—And The Company Will Pay Big Money To Get Its Shipping Ledgers Back

The Gibson Les Paul is practically synonymous with rock and roll, becoming the go-to axe for countless guitar heroes including Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Guns N’ Roses’ Slash. It’s as versatile an instrument as it is iconic, and the right hands can wring thunderous riffs, molten solos and warm, clean tones from it in equal measure.

Gibson enjoyed its golden era between 1958 and 1960, and the 1959 Les Paul Standards are some of the most highly sought-after guitars in the world. They regularly fetch six-figure sums, and a well-preserved ’59 Les Paul with a coveted flame maple top could easily command $500,000 or more. 

For decades, Gibson has been missing a crucial document from its golden era: its 1959-60 shipping ledgers, which are presumed to have gone missing around the time the company moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee in 1984. These ledgers contain information about every Gibson product shipped between the second half of 1958 and the end of 1960, including Flying Vs, Explorers, early SGs, and of course, the hallowed ’59 Les Pauls. They may be able to shed light on lesser-known Gibson models and prototypes—and further distinguish authentic ’59 Les Pauls from the hordes of fakes.

Now, Gibson is seeking to reclaim its history. The company is launching a nationwide search for its missing shipping ledgers and offering $59,000 “with zero questions asked” to anybody who can return the books. It’s also offering rewards on a case-by-case basis for any documents, blueprints or historical assets predating 1970. Anybody who thinks they have a qualifying item can email 59Ledger@gibson.com with a written description, photograph or video and phone number.

“We're in search for the holy grail,” Gibson CMO Cesar Gueikian says. 

“I think it's gonna be quite revolutionary”

One of the greatest incentives for recovering Gibson’s missing shipping ledgers is to have ironclad proof of authenticity of its golden-era Les Pauls. The company only shipped 643 Les Pauls in 1959, but these days, there are far more alleged ’59 Les Pauls in circulation. 

“The importance for the collector community of being able to establish provenance of the instruments and obviously authenticity, I think it's gonna be quite revolutionary,” Gueikian says.

The missing ledgers could also contain information even more tantalizing and groundbreaking than that of the ’59 Les Pauls: details about the mythical Gibson Moderne.

The company prototyped the guitar in 1957 in tandem with the Flying V and Explorer but did not put it into production until 1982. Patent drawings exist, but there is no physical evidence that Gibson ever created a Moderne in the ‘50s. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top has claimed to own an original, but has never allowed anyone to photograph or inspect it for authenticity. To this day, the Moderne remains the “great white whale” of the guitar world. 

“If it were to surface that we actually made one and we can trace it, I can guarantee you that would be the most expensive guitar in the world,” Gueikian says. “I would say it might have a $20 million handle on it.”

Even if the Moderne proves to be merely legend, guitar enthusiasts would still find plenty in Gibson’s 1959-60 ledgers to sink their teeth into regarding the ’59 Les Pauls. The technical specs, craftsmanship and design of Gibson’s golden-era Les Pauls were nearly unprecedented.

Fretboards made from Brazilian rosewood (the now-endangered Dalbergia nigra) produced a one-of-a-kind tone and feel, and the flame maple top created the inimitable “tiger stripe” design. Meanwhile, the nitrocellulose lacquer used to set the neck to the body evaporates over time, turning the guitar into one long tuning fork with tonal qualities that evolve with age.

“It's just a beautiful guitar and a fantastic instrument, and obviously it was adopted by dozens of hugely influential players,” says Mat Koehler, head of product development at Gibson. “Guitar gods all favored this model. So when you put that all together, it's no wonder why the values are large fractions of a million dollars for originals.”

“It’s worth a little bit more now”

A 1950s Gibson Les Paul wasn’t always a bank-breaking investment. Cheap Trick guitarist and songwriter Rick Nielsen bought his first Les Paul, a 1955 gold top, in 1965 at a bookstore in Rockford, Illinois for $65. Three years later, he traded a Gibson SG and $25 for a ’59 Les Paul, which he turned around and sold to fellow guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck for $350. 

“It’s worth a little bit more now,” Nielsen says dryly. 

The eccentric six-stringer behind rock and roll super-hits like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Dream Police” knew when he first played a ’59 Les Paul that it was the real deal. 

“It had everything,” he says. “It had the look, it had the feel, it had the weight.” 

Over the years, Nielsen has added about 80 Les Pauls to his formidable guitar stash, including five 1959 models. They’ve graduated quite a bit in price since his formative Rockford days. Nielsen acquired his most recent ’59 Les Paul—which formerly belonged to Rush singer/bassist Geddy Lee—in January for a cool $215,000.

Nielsen’s still brings his first 1959 Les Paul on the road with him (“Why would you bring the crummy stuff?”), perhaps to the chagrin of his road crew. He estimates the guitar takes up at least half of Cheap Trick’s insurance rider. 

“The guys in the band said, 'Well, don't bring that one,’” Nielsen recalls. “But I did. I just didn't tell anybody.”

“It’s like working for the Mob”

Joe Bonamassa is an incendiary blues guitarist and consummate workaholic, releasing 14 solo studio albums and 16 live albums over the last 20 years. But fans know him as much for his staggering vintage guitar collection as his incredible chops. They look forward to seeing Bonamassa break out the Snakebite and the Skinnerburst—two 1959 Les Paul Standards just three serial numbers apart—onstage.

When asked how much he paid for his most expensive Les Paul, he says simply, “Too much.” 

Bonamassa says the recovery of Gibson’s lost shipping ledgers will likely put many guitar collectors’ minds at ease. 

“There's a substantial amount of money on the line, and having a guitar that's written in stone in a real serial number is very comforting to a lot of people, including yours truly,” he says.  

But ideally, Bonamassa says, these collectors would have done their homework ahead of time, and the ledgers would only confirm what they already knew.

“If you're that unsure about the guitar's authenticity and you didn't do the due diligence to make sure you know enough about a guitar and know enough about real guitars versus fake guitars before you laid out a couple hundred thousand dollars, there there's some flawed logic there,” he says. “The book isn't a savior. The book is just another piece of the puzzle.”

Bonamassa bought his first ’59 Les Paul in 2010. He now has 10—with an additional eight 1960 Les Pauls—in his massive arsenal. The blues maestro relies on them for “65 to 70%” of his music and praises their precision and versatility.

“As an instrument, they drive like a Ferrari,” he says. “If you want them to moan, or if you want them to get super quiet, or if you want to use them as a weapon, their dynamics are almost infinite. And you can go from whisper quiet, to blowing people back in their seats, back to whisper quiet in about a bar.”

For a lifelong collector like Bonamassa, the hunt is as thrilling as the catch. Last year, he completed a seven-year search for Tommy Bolin’s lost 1960 Les Paul Standard with an American flag pickguard. Bolin, who played guitar in Deep Purple, the James Gang and Zephyr, died in 1976 at the age of 25. His Les Paul had been sitting in an Airstream trailer in Moab, Utah since 1978. 

The acquisition quenched Bonamassa’s thirst temporarily, but pretty soon, he was planning his next Les Paul score. 

“You can say you’re out, but you’re never out,” he says. “It’s like working for the Mob.”

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