Guitar???

im not a guitar player, but it looks like its been a good 5 years since i shared "my" guitar story (im a drummer, well, im not, but i enjoy playing drums, anyway)

so gather 'round, throw another ibanez on the fire and listen to my tale of the '59 Les Paul


a friend of mine has a 59 Les Paul

it musta been 15 years ago now he had decide to have it refinished/tended to
the topcoat had worn through from all the playing and there were a few little screws missing
he had heard from a friends friend about this guy who had known Les personally who supposedly had some original hardware laying around to replace the missing screws

well, it took the guy months and months to get the guitar back to him and my buddy was starting to think he would never see the guitar again (now remember, this was before the scamdemic and turn around times were generally short, but it was also before email and all that, and a lot of correspondence still went through mail and it generally took a while to hear back from people)

until one day the doorbell rang, UPS with a special delivery
on the box was a little note from the guy who fixed and refinished the guitar apologizing for the delay and that he hoped what was left under the topcoat would make up for it

my buddy opened the box and found all the missing screws replaced with original hardware and a beautiful shiny new top coat
underneath the top coat was the unmistakable signature of one Les Paul

apparently the guy fixing the guitar actually did know Les and he had happened to come by his shop while he was working on my buddies guitar
they got to talking about the axe and when the guy expressed his frustration about how long it took him to get it back together (he had a hard time finding the right hardware) and Les decided to sign the guitar to make it worth the wait for my buddy

just a few years Les died