DALLAS, TX.- The lineup of instruments featured in Heritage Auctions’ April 3 Guitars and Musical Instruments Signature® Auction is positively star-studded, mementos from a stage crowded with Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. There’s the 1988 Gibson Flying V owned and signed by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. A five-string Mosrite bass custom-made for The Cars’ Benjamin Orr. The 1998 Punisher electric bass commissioned by KISS’ Gene Simmons and hand-painted by SAK. A 1977 Ibanez Artist Custom made for Steve Miller. And so many more.

But only one guitar in this auction was made for Eric Clapton, then gifted to Gregg Allman.

That would be the circa-1970 Gibson Les Paul custom black solid body, which, for the last 40 years, has remained in the care of a Florida woman whose mother was friends with Allman when he lived on Anna Maria Island from the late 1970s until the early ’80s.

“We are very excited to be able to bring this guitar to the public for the first time,” says Aaron Piscopo, Director of Vintage Guitars & Musical Instruments at Heritage Auctions. “Gregg Allman is such an important part of modern music history, both with the Allman Brothers Band and as a solo artist. And to include this guitar – so close to the 50th anniversary of Eat a Peach’s release, and a gift from Clapton, no less – is a thrill and an honor, especially alongside the other artists who rock this auction.”

Kendra Presswood was a teenager in the early 1980s, and Allman lived but a few blocks from her house on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Allman, she says, was a frequent houseguest and a friend of her mother’s, as were guitarist Dan Toller and his brother, drummer David “Frankie” Toller, both of whom had appeared on Dickie Betts’ 1978 Atlanta’s Burning Down. By 1980, the Tollers were full-fledged members of the reconstituted Allman Brothers Band, but Presswood remembers all three men as music teachers, visitors, friends.

“They hung around a lot, so we knew them pretty well,” she says. “And one time, Gregg came over and played this guitar – then left it. Mom thought it was an accident. He told her, ‘I left it there for you as a gift.’ Of course, she had no use for it, because she played no instruments.”

Instead, mother gifted the guitar to her daughter, then struggling to learn the instrument before she abandoned the idea altogether. “Unfortunately,” she says with a slight laugh, “I realized when I was fairly young I had no natural talent, so there was no point in continuing to play the guitar.”

So she kept Allman’s Les Paul in its case and out of sight, pulling it only occasionally to show it off to friends for whom “Whipping Post,” “Melissa,” “Ramblin’ Man” and other Allmans songs were old friends and favorites. She never thought of the guitar as a big deal at the time “or for years later,” Presswood says. “I just kept it for sentimental value long after I stopped playing it.”

Allman had told Presswood’s mother the guitar had once belonged to Eric Clapton. But not long ago she had Tyler Roe, owner of Idlewild Guitars & Teaching Studios in Savannah, Ga., examine the guitar and trace its history via the serial number. After several months of research, Roe discovered it was indeed a special order made for Clapton, with “the only modification being that Eric Clapton had his tech remove the factory pickup covers upon delivery, as this was his desired setup.”

Roe’s sleuthing determined that “Eric Clapton special-ordered this Gibson Les Paul Custom from Gibson in late 1969/early 1970 and would gift it to Gregory on or about December of 1971 after the death of Gregg's brother Duane.” Which, he notes via email, was not uncommon: Clapton gifted a Les Paul to Duane during the Derek and the Dominoes sessions in 1970, and six years later gave Dave Edmunds the Martin D-45 that sold at auction for $625,000 last fall.

“Tyler did a ton of research and found out all that stuff, which was awesome,” Presswood says. “Without all those details, it was just a story someone told my mom.”

But there’s no doubt the Les Paul was once a major player in Allman’s arsenal: It appears in myriad photos from the early to mid-1970s, including one inside the gatefold for 1974’s double live album The Gregg Allman Tour.

Presswood says she is bringing the guitar to auction now only because “it has been sitting in a case in my house, and someone might as well enjoy it. I still have the sentimental value, sure; believe me, it was hard to ship it off. But it just sits here, and it wants to be played.”