1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard on eBay

Here's another vintage beauty put up by Norman's Rare Guitars on eBay. (Item#: 180433734696)

This 1960 cherry sunburst Gibson Les Paul comes with all hang-tags and paperwork intact and in dead-mint condition. The guitar appears to be in pretty good shape too!

The nitrocellulose finish appears unmarked and pristine -- except for a little finish wear on the top edge of the back of the headstock, there appear to be no finish checks, belt-buckle rash or other wear spots from looking at the pics.

And the red pigment in the sunburst paint-job hasn't faded at all. This guitar has probably not seen much light of day in its 49 years -- a closet classic in the truest sense of the phrase.

This guitar doesn't come cheap. And that's an understatement considering the Buy It Now price of $325,000.

But this could be one of the most sound investments one could make, if this Guitar Trader ad from 1979 is anything to go by.

A Vintage 1960 Les Paul Standard for $3,000?

Before you go reaching for that credit card, this is a Guitar Trader ad from 1979.

Original 1960 Les Paul's these days go for slightly more than $3000. Somewhere in the vicinity of 20 times that amount to be exact -- an appreciation of 2000% over a 30 year period! Not bad considering the Standard's original retail price of $280 in 1959.

But as they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

And vintage guitars continue to be quietly traded to this day, bought and sold by affluent collectors and players who speculate that prices will sky-rocket even more.

Interestingly, in the early 80's, Guitar Trader cooperated with Gibson to release a limited production run of Les Paul's made to 1959 specs -- probably one of the first such production partnerships.

The guitars were produced in Gibson's old Kalamazoo, Michigan factory and were extremely faithful reproductions thanks to the vintage experts at Guitar Trader who pursued replicating all details of the '59 Les Paul Standard to the nth degree.

The first few instruments produced in the run also featured original old-stock Gibson Patent-Applied-For (PAF) pickups from Guitar Trader's own personal inventory of vintage spare parts. Talk about adding value!