"Yeah, I did that one" Tom said to me over the phone. I had put in a call to Mr. Murphy regarding this '04 R9 to see if he indeed had relic'd it while at Gibson. Lee had purchased it at a small Southeastern guitar show and the first thing I noticed when I opened the case back in the 'Elkcave was the absence of the COA. That makes me twitchy because I am a stickler for these packages being as complete as possible. Missing case candy gets me going, but a COA that's MIA makes the guitar DOA...to me. Lee just rolled his eyes and said, "You haven't even heard the guitar yet. Doesn't that matter?" What ensued next was a 20 minute discussion on the value of the paperwork that was originally included when these guitars were built and the importance of their inclusion to the packages when we sell them. Again, he insisted that I was basically focusing on the color of a car that I had not yet driven. Me, having a serious case of Napoleon Syndrome and heavy control issues continued to argue until Lee walked across the room, gently plugged the guitar into a Soldano Hot Rod 50 and made a shushing sound to me. So, I shut up and listened. This guitar sounds like Denzel Washington in that movie, "Man on Fire"- devastating. Lee played a bunch of the stuff we both like and it all sounded like I remembered. The chords sounded crunchy and the lead notes were clear and sustained nicely. After playing it for a short while, he looked over at me and said, "Now what's more important, the tone of this thing or a piece of paper?" I had to admit that, while the COA was a detail that I liked to have, a great sounding guitar was ultimately what I loved to hear. But to satisfy my internal need for closure, we met up with Tom in Dallas and he gave us a handwritten letter confirming that this R9 was indeed listed in his super- duper, top secret ledger of pieces that he aged while at Gibson. Many thanks to him for his generosity and simply put, here is someone's chance to own a smokin' '59 relic'd reissue Les Paul with as much pedigree as we can possibly provide. The rest will be up to you...