Yeah, this cropped up on the Harmony board a while back - a lot of howls of protest, tho interestingly the majority view (which i share) was that if it means that this became a uable guitar fro some guy, that's much better than it hanging on a wall unused somewhere, being treated as a museum piece...
It's probably the first 59 I@ve seen that i might like to own (being a lefty)....
I'm NOT a fan of vintage gear (i tend to believe that the reissues are, as a general rule of thumb, likely to be more reliable, better guitars, and a fraction of the price in the long run - if not the same investment, but then it comes down to why you buy a guitar in the first place - as an investment or to play... or both...), but having said that, if this is a real photo (some on harmony seemed to reckon it was doctored), and i could buy that guitar for buttons.... I'm sure it still sounds good, and i could tell people I owned a 59 and watch their jaws drop, heh heh heh.
If it is real, i guess it was done in the early 60s when these guitars wer pretty much worthless (as were Strats until a certain James Marshall Hendrix picked one up - oh, and Bob Dylan went electric with one...)
I'd want to do away with all that plastic round the knobs, tho....