1962 SG Les Paul Junior

1962 Gibson SG Les Paul Junior.

Double cutaway solid body with pointed horns. This featherweight guitar weighs in at just 6.60 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches, a medium-to-thin profile and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid one-piece mahogany body with bevelled edges, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with gold silk-screened "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Junior" Serial number "73673" impressed into the back of the headstock. Closed-back 'single-line' Kluson Deluxe strip tuners with white plastic oval buttons. One P-90 pickup with a really hot output of 8.76k. The potentiometers are stamped "134 6202" (Centralab, January 1962). Two-layer (black on white) laminated plastic pickguard with seven screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Black plastic bell-shaped control knobs with metal tops. Jack socket on body face. Combination preset ridged "wrap-over" bar bridge and Maestro vibrola tailpiece with flat-arm. There are a few small surface marks/indentations on the top and the back of the body and a few minor surface abrasions on the edges. The back of the neck is slightly faded and there is a small surface chip on the bass side just by the 4th fret. Otherwise this fifty-two year old little screamer is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition. Housed in the original three-latch Gibson brown "alligator" softshell case (8.50).

"Considering all the Les Paul models as a whole, sales declined in 1960 after a peak in 1959. By 1961, Gibson had decided on a complete re-design of the line in an effort to try reactivate them...One of the first series of new models to benefit from Gibson's expanded production facilities was the revised Les Paul design, the SG ("Solid Guitar"). At first, these completely new instruments with their highly sculpted, double-cutaway design continued to be named Les Paul models, so guitars of this new style made between 1961 and 1963, with suitable markings are now known as SG/Les Pauls. But by 1963 the Les Paul name had been removed, and the models officially continued as SGs" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 44).