There’s a lot of drool-worthy recording gear in that Les Paul catalogue as well. Still, you can get it all as plug-ins these days, so nothing lost.
As with many rock songs, there’s the easy way and the subtle way - on one hand, when Keith Richards is playing in Open G, he famously states “all you need is 3 chords, two fingers and 1 asshole” but if you actually try to play it with all the nuance and groove that Keef does, every song is a master class…
So I find it odd that some a bit of that gear seems really reasonably priced. See #168, p93 for example:
"2005 GIBSON LES PAUL GOLDTOP Serial number 1045324 - 2005 Les Paul goldtop signed by the artist’s who played at Paul’s 90th birthday celebration held at Carnegie Hall on June 19, 2005. Signatures include: Eumir Deodato, Tommy Emmanuel, Jose Feliciano, Peter Frampton, Omar Hakim, Stanley Jordan, Will Lee, Steve Lukather, Pat Martino, Steve Miller, Lou Pallo, Madeline Peyroux, Buckey Pizzarelli, Joe Satriani, Neil Schon, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks and Edgar Winter.
$3000-$5000"
Really? A Les Paul owned by Les Paul with all those signatures only fetches 3-5k? Do they usually lowball these things at auction, or is this really what -range they expect to get?
Most auction estimates are lowballed - look at the painting/pastel *The Scream *which had a preauction estimate of $80 million and when for $120 million. It does seem like it would carry cache well above that estimate.
Auction houses always set the estimate low so as to get people bidding. Once the bidding starts, the bidders have already (to some extent) started to think of the item as “theirs”, and are much more likely to keep on bidding against each other.
Thanks, WordMan, Shakester. Interesting. I’ve never seen an auction, so I don’t know how the auction house operates. So I guess I can stop dreaming about getting one of the four 200 LP Customs on p22-23 for $1500 then. 
For the LP auction, I am assuming it will get a LOT of attention. For the most part, however - at least back in the day before the internet - auctions were a legit way to find deals. Sure, the jewels of the auction would get bid up, but the majority of stuff could be had closer to wholesale. There was risk - limited ability to inspect the stuff, etc. - and not a lot of folks were wired into the auction world.
If you want to stay on top of guitar auctions, a player that has gotten huge over the past few years is Heritage Auctions.
**E-Sabbath ** gave me a guitar - very cool. It was one of the Xaviere ones that was being discussed on this thread a bit of time ago. When he ordered, they sent the wrong one and for a variety of reasons I don’t fully recall or understand, they just sent our **Mr. E-Sabs **a new guitar without requiring the other one to be returned. It pays to be charming!
It’s this model but with a white pickguard (link to the Xaviere site). A Tele/Jazzmaster hybrid design which is very cool.
So with a parking-lot audition - it sounded great through a battery-powered Vox - and some great pizza - I made sure I covered the price of dinner 
- I got the guitar home. The intent was to let my 14-year-old be the primary caretaker. He really loves it - he’s been figuring out Radiohead songs ever since.
But what is really cool is that I really enjoy it, too. Given that these guitars were going for <$150 - this is a very-well-put-together guitar. The basic bones of the guitar seem great - the neck is well made and very playable; the neck/body joint seems solid; the overall set up, hardware, etc. all seem solid. The Volume and Tone pots have a good feel when I rotate them and the knobs are decent. The bridge is a classic 3-barrel brass Tele bridge that seems like the $40-$50 versions I see on parts sites. It really has the basic feel of a Made in Mexico Fender which is a very good thing and typically goes for 3x or 4x that price.
The pickups - well, I need to check them out more - I was mostly playing through my son’s cheapie digital Marshall. But bottom line is that the pickups are pretty darn amazing for such an inexpensive guitar. Knowing me, I would use that as an excuse to spend a bit more money and swap them - but the stock ones are totally usable as they are.
So - am I playing a particularly good example? Well, E-Sabs says that the one he kept plays just as well, so these just may be a solid deal.
As I have said in the past, I have found that with solidbody electrics, I am not inclined to want to invest tons of $$ in vintage gear - and I have traded away my vintage solidbodies - because I don’t hear a dramatic difference between vintage and what I assembled myself. After playing this guitar, I am even more convinced. Thanks again, sir - I appreciate your sharing it.
Actually, I did pay for both guitars, but I got someone else to pay for it because they broke the first. Long story, not worth repeating.
It’s my pleasure, and I hope your son has a long and happy history with it.
One of the things I was curious about was how you felt about the body compared to the traditional Tele body.
And I look forward to what happens when you put it through your better amp.
The body - you know, I find the Fender offset-waist body of a Jazzmaster very comfy and playable. It is contoured, unlike a Tele, so I like both the belly cut and the arm-rest bevels on those bodies. I guess I would say “I didn’t notice the body other than finding it comfortable” which is actually pretty high praise.
And yeah, I need to put it through my better amp. Long story, but we have new cat and he has a litter box issue (when we were away for over a day, he pooped upstairs :eek:). So all of my gear was trundled over to a corner while we are figuring this out…should happen in the next week or two…
Do you find the 1 5/8’s nut width a bit narrow? Since you like basebat necks and all? Personally, I have small hands and really like a thin, non-bat neck.
Shakester, thanks for all the info. I went ahead and ordered a Mean 90, news when I solder it into the Dot.
A late question: I see Duncan and others tout Alnico II, Alnico V in different pickups (here. Any thoughts on what these mean for tone, or is it mostly snake oil/cork-sniffing beyond the part where it’s an AlNiCo? Thanks.
Depends on how good you are. If you’re really good, it’s not quite cork sniffing.
if the designer is really good, they could make the same sound with a ceramic as a Alnico.
But… mostly, people expect alnico to sound like this while ceramic sounds like this and that’s the biggest difference you’ll notice, designers designing towards a sound.
Most people will never notice.
My General Rule of Thumb is that ceramics sound more biased towards metal (high-gain) and alnicos bias towards rock.
You should see the weird-ass cherry LP I have. Nut’s 1 21/32".
Right, but my question was (and I probably did not make it as clear as I should have): is the difference between Alnico II and Alinco V (or Alnico whatever) interesting or is the only very important difference between Alnico vs not-alnico?
Which is wider than 1 5/8", no?
It is, huh. The neck itself is still much skinnier than the tele, though. Possibly because it’s also a shorter scale than the Tele.
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough: the difference, technically, exists, but you’re not gonna notice, and I’m not gonna notice. Eric Johnson would notice, but he’s nuts.
Depends which tele, but we don’t need to quibble which. I was just remarking that (I think) 1 5/8" is an unusually skinny neck profile. Recently I was looking at an Eric Johnson strat whose neck I thought felt good and noticed it was 1 5/8. Since then I had been looking for necks like that, and they seem pretty rare. So your next response was just perfect:
Ooh, perfect timing. That made me laugh pretty hard. Thanks! 
ETA: FWIW, my AD tele is 1 11/16. This seems to be the common “skinny” width as far as I can determine. My Xavie e LP Special is 1 11/16.
And I just re-read this and cannot believe my dyslexic wording. I meant “baseball bat neck”, e.g. a big old-school neck profile, which I recall you favor. Sorry. But you probably already figured that out.
E-Sabbath covered it pretty well, my only contribution is that the Roman numerals have to do with magnet strength, which may or may not be related to the exact composition of the alloy. An AlNiCo V is stronger than an AlNiCo II, because 5 is more than 2. For reasons that surpass my understanding, 5 and 2 seem to be the traditional strengths that AlNiCo magnets are made in. You don’t often hear about AlNiCo IIIs or IVs, or Is for that matter.
Anyway, battery strength, in the amounts that make up a guitar pickup, don’t make much difference. Getting pretty close to cork-sniffing territory. An AlNiCo II will be slightly more “refined” sounding than an AlNiCo V, but as E-Sabbath says, whether it’s actually detectable by human ears is entirely debatable.
The main diff with magnets is AlNiCo vs ceramic, and ceramic are a bit more harsh compared to the smoothness of AlNiCo. Some people prefer a bit more grainyness in their sound; what E-Sabbath says about metal-vs-rock is a good call. However, the line between “grainy” and “harsh” is entirely subjective.
I knew what you meant. Yeah, I tried not to comment too much about my biases regarding necks. This neck is too medium for me - I can say, though, I that I appreciate it as a well-made medium neck. Back contour is comfy and feels well-finished with no conspicuous poly buildup. Nice amber tint to the maple. Fretboard and frets smooth and even; no buzz-outs or roughness on the edges. All good.
So I bought my guitar - a red Fender MIM Stratocaster - and a Fender Mustang I practice amp. I’ve spent a few hours making weird noises using the various amp settings.
Next step is to start learning how to actually play this thing. I want to see how far I can get on my own before knuckling down and taking lessons from an actual person… Has anyone got any suggestions on good websites, programs, IPad apps, youtube videos etc, that a beginner can check out to learn to play? My emphasis is on rock, ranging from punk to ZZtop to Queens of the Stone Age - almost anything that is rock without necessarily being Metal. Not that I dislike metal, I just don’t want to go there at this point.