1959 Gibson ES-355 Mono Red, Excellent, Original Hard, $14,000.00

In my little rarefied world of ES model guitars, there are only a few holy grails. This is one of them. Everybody likes the big 59 neck but there aren't a lot of 355's that have it. That's because they went to the slim profile on 355's fairly early in 59. It was a low volume guitar to begin with and finding one with a big neck has been a challenge. I've had four so far (ever). Finding a mono one is an even bigger challenge. This is only the second big neck mono 355 I've had in my hands. It's a spectacularly good guitar but it has an issue. Many, many years ago, it fell over and the headstock cracked-it's the typical "smile" crack" and it was pro repaired and has been rock solid for decades. But it takes what would have been a $20,000+ guitar and makes it affordable. It plays great, looks great ("watermelon fade" in spades) and sounds even better than it looks. I'm really tempted to keep this one for myself.