Scott Gorham’s 1957 Standard is one of the Thin Lizzy hero’s most prized – but just a month after buying it, he faced a fight to fly it overseas. Originally acquired in the late 1970s, the guitar was sold to Gorham for a princely sum of $2,300 by a vintage guitar dealer who visited the band while they were in Boston. Gorham was besotted with the ‘Holy Grail’ guitar, and – with the enthusiastic encouragement of his colleagues – quickly snapped up the Les Paul, and began playing it while in the States.
When it came to traveling to London a few weeks later, though, Gorham ran afoul of the airport customs security, who seized his new pride and joy while it was entering the country. “I played that ’57 for a month in the States,” Gorham recalls in the new issue of . “We get back to Heathrow and the customs guy has all our cases out, with the lids flipped up.
“And he went straight for that Les Paul. He says, ‘What a beautiful guitar – how much did you pay for it?’ I said, ‘$2,300.’ He goes, ‘Really? On the carnet here it says $600.
’ He closes the lid – whack! ‘That’s my guitar now.’” As a result of the incorrect carnet – which, in the context of music gear, is effectively a passport for goods that lets you take equipment out of the country without paying tax or duties – Gorham’s newly acquired ‘57 Les Paul Standard was confiscated. In order to smooth over the issue and get his Les Paul back safe and sound, Gorham had to go to c.
