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Marc Bolan’s famous "Gretsch Orange" Les Paul stolen 40 years ago resurfaced on the "My Les Paul Forum" last November In one of those "my Dad owned an old Les Paul,any other way to identify what year the guitar might be?" threads (link)

Cool

The grain doesn't look the same at all and there's no sign of a 4-bolt neck plate ever having been driven through the body heel area so I'm going with "naw".

paul_ wrote:The grain doesn't look the same at all and there's no sign of a 4-bolt neck plate ever having been driven through the body heel area so I'm going with "naw".

Did you read the thread? There is alot more photos and information there:

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/vintage ... al-no.html

Also The 4 bolt neck plate was on another Bolen guitar,a japanese copy. There is a picture of it and an interview with Bolan about it in the thread:

From a 1972 interview with MB.....

Marc, what guitars do you have?

"Lots, I've about ten. Five Gibsons, a Stratocaster, a Flying Arrow, four gold Gibson Les Pauls. But I love them, I mean, it's not like 'I buy guitars, kid' you know, each has an individual sound. I mean that one there, which has an amazing sound, costs £35. It's a cheap Japanese guitar, which is a copy of a Gibson guitar, which sounds just like a Gibson guitar, so I bougt that. A Gibson costs £300".

1972 int. from the book Voxpop, int. by Michael Wale

No because it's a million pages long and I'm at work, just tell me exactly why it's definitely his and I'll believe it if it's not hearsay/wishful forum thinking... I've looked at/read a lot about this guitar before; it's not like I'm trying to discredit it, it's just that we're going off a Les Paul that can only now be identified by it's top and the fact that the neck is not original. Going off the comparison pics (especially the ones with all the circles drawn on them) makes them look like different tops to me. There's grain in the same places but its a different shape, there's grain on Bolan's that isn't on this one, etc... There are even dudes circling the damn Bigsby screw holes in that thread (we is expertz!)

There was a fully restored burst a few years back which everyone on that same forum decided just HAD to be Bolan's orange LP because the grain was similar and it had a zebra in the neck. Comparison pics galore aimed to prove it was... looks like it wasn't.

I don't know if it is really Bolan's guitar,I just thought it is an interesting thread.The photos of the guitar are now in the Burst Serial Log website

http://www.burstserial.com/index.php?/category/1422

Yeah, I wasn't sure about the grain but the other pictures show some of what looks like knots in the grain are actually pits and deformities in the finish picking up shadow. The rest of the grain actually does look pretty much spot on.

Crazy.