COLUMN ONE - Amped about this ax - The Burst guitar, with its lush finish and rich sound, has gone from pawnshop castoff to $500,000 collectible. Its devotees are 'relentless.'

When Joe Ganzler found Gladys, it was love at first sight. She had a curvaceous body and graceful neck. When he held her in his arms and turned her on, she filled with electricity and purred.

"The belle of the ball," Ganzler said.

Ganzler, 51, has been married three times but has fallen for just one guitar. Gladys, as a former owner named it, is a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard with a sunburst finish. Ganzler keeps it in his Orange County garage, in a massive safe that looks as though it could withstand a bazooka attack.

For good reason. Only about 1,500 Bursts, as they are known, were made between 1958 and 1960. They were a commercial flop. But today the Burst is considered the Stradivarius of solid-body electric guitars. Its distinctive, syrupy sound, mythic back story and cherry-and-gold wood finish have made it the world's most sought-after ax.

Amid a bull market in collectible guitars propelled by baby boomer wealth and nostalgia, the price of Bursts has soared. One in mint condition with a desirable finish can fetch more than $500,000 -- 10 times as much as a decade ago.

"It's the Holy Grail of guitars," said Dan Yablonka, a Laguna Beach musician who fondly recalls the one he owned for a few weeks 30 years ago before flipping it for a nice profit. "They sound like they are being played by the finger of God."

Even spare parts are revered like gemstones. An original cream-colored ring that fits over the rhythm/treble pickup switch -- essentially a washer -- was recently offered on EBay for $1,200.

Original price of the whole guitar: about $280.

That Les Paul Bursts have gone from pawnshop castoffs to expensive antiques surprises nobody more than 92-year-old Les Paul.

"It's crazy," said Paul, who lives in New Jersey, where he has about 300 of those pickup switch washers in a box somewhere. "But I'm very gratified. We worked hard to make it the most beautiful instrument there is. It's your mistress, your psychiatrist, your bartender -- everything you could dream of in one instrument."

Paul was a successful guitarist when he began working with Gibson to design a solid-body electric that didn't create feedback at high volumes the way hollow-body instruments did. California inventor Leo Fender was already selling one.

The 1950s proved to be the golden era of electric guitars. Old World craftsmanship fused with new technologies to create instruments that have yet to be surpassed. The Burst wasn't created so much as it evolved.