1959 Gibson ES335 on eBay | Mike Landau Owned!

Here's an eBay listing for a 1959 Gibson ES335 dot-neck owned by Mike Landau!

Mike rarely gives interviews and never comments on the gear he consigns on eBay, but for this guitar he had this to say:

"I've had the pleasure of owning this fine guitar for about 17 years now. I bought the 335 at Rudy's in New York while on tour with James Taylor, I think is was around '92 or '93. Its an amazing playing AND amazing sounding instrument, plus its definitely got the look. I used it on many sessions over the years, funny enough, I used it on a lot of Nashville artists some years back, including a couple solo's on Tim McGraw and also on his lovely wife Faith Hill."


"The guitar is all original except for an expert refret by Jim Tyler when I first got the guitar. I have the original tuners as well (I put new ones on when Jim refreted it) sadly its time to part with it now, I just don't play it that much anymore, I hope it find's a good home - Its a very juicy guitar!"

The original Patent Applied For pickups, with the black PAF stickers still attached on the underside, measure 8.56K ohms for the front pickup and 8.52K ohms on the bridge.  The 50-year old Alnico magnets would probably also have mellowed very nicely. 

The seller, LA Vintage Gear has listed several Mike Landau owned pieces on eBay in the past and are currently also listing Mike's custom Matchless Chieftain 2 x 12 which you can check out here.

eBay Item Number: 200511658923

PAF Pickups Owned By Mike Landau on eBay

Here are a pair of PAF's owned by Mike Landau. (Item #: 200404684665)


L.A. Vintage Gear has been auctioning a lot of stuff for Landau recently and according to them these are from his "extensive pickup stash". The original covers and black Patent Applied For stickers are still intact.


Gibson applied for a patent on their humbucking pickups on 22nd June 1955 and were awarded the patent only on 28th July 1959.


But interestingly, from 1957 to 1962 Gibson stickered every pickup with a Patent Applied For label. It was only after '62 that the patent number started appearing.

One of the pickups in this matched set was rewound by John Suhr -- probably due to a broken coil -- while the other remains stock. L.A. Vintage Gear has taken this mod into consideration and shaved a fair bit off their Buy It Now price.


You can hear these pickups in action in the Michelle Branch clip below. Mike's rhythm tones are amazing -- gutsy and with tons of attitude. You can't put a sticker or a Buy It Now on that:

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!