I think it's good that someone with the money has been going out and warehousing the important iconic models of guitars around.
At the end of the day, John5's collection will end up in some museum, as they are the only places that can guarantee the level of security and conservation when these instruments get much older. Either he, or the person who is bequeathed the collection, will end up loaning a lot of the instruments to a contemporary museum.
That will be better than the instruments falling to pieces and modded beyond recognition.
I believe that Keith Richards, David Gilmour & Pete Townshend also own sizeable collections of guitars.
But for the average player, these sort of guitars are way beyond our means and it's better we forget about them or run the risk of being permanently depressed that we haven't got THE model we desire.
Some of these early Teles/Broadcaster/ Esquires have issues with the stability of the neck as Leo initially tried to have models without truss rods. Also it is very hard to authenticate these guitars, pots may have been replaced, sometimes even pickups or necks. It's best left to experts to decide the provenance, like the art experts do with art works that surface many years after the painter did the work. That sort of research can only be done if you have the means to engage an expert, and get the guitar proven. If you are someone prepared to pay $130K for an old guitar, you might as well fork out an extra $ or two to get it properly assessed.
