Re: Special Les Pauls Day....
I can believe that that is a '68 Les Paul. The headstock, frets, and binding look right (as do the knobs, though easily replaceable parts like that mean little). However, it has to have been refinished (poorly, I might add), and had the original P90 routs routed out. Sunbursts and humbuckers did not come on '68 Pauls unless by special order (very rare). Additionally, very few of the other parts are original. The original tuners, nut, truss rod cover, bridge, tailpiece, pickups are all gone, and not only near impossible to replace, but not worth the money even if you could find the right parts. There also might have been some difficult to repair work done to mount that godawful bridge.
The best bet for that guitar is to have a professional restorer completely strip the top, replace the missing wood, and restore the original gold top finish, fake-aged to match the rest of the guitar. Load it up with Antiquity P90's and "distressed" hardware, including new double-ring tuners. Even then, you're talking about something worth $2,000, TOPS. As it is, it's a $1,500 guitar TOPS, only to someone who really wanted a '68 and could do most of the restoration him or herself. If it played well (i.e. didn't need new frets), I'd pay that for it, since I have a '68 SG Std., a '68 ES-330, a '68 Guild F50, and a '68 Princeton Reverb. I've always wanted a '68 Lester to add to the list. $1,500 is high, but I would pay it for those reasons (I really want a '68 and I can do the work myself). $6,000 is an absolute joke, though. The shop owner is probably just ignorant of what makes a guitar like that worth money, and priced it as if it was an all original example that he saw sell on E-Bay or sumthin'. Sadly, it's likely gonna just sit there and rot for who know how long. Kinda sad to see, as I'd love to tackle the project, at a reasonable price.
