An All Original "Bullion Gold" Les Paul

1952 Gibson Les Paul Standard "All-Gold"

This totally original 'All-Gold' Les Paul Standard weighs just 8.30 lbs. and has nice, fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany body with a gold-finished solid carved maple top. One-piece mahogany neck with a wonderful thick thick profile, and Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original thin (.070) frets and inlaid pearl trapezoid (crown) position markers. The top of the guitar has single cream binding and the fretboard has single white binding. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and with "Les Paul Model" silk-screened in gold. This is a very early Les Paul with no serial number on the back of the headstock as usual**. Two-layer bell-shaped black on white plastic truss-rod cover with two screws. Individual single-line "no-name" Kluson Deluxe tuners (stamped inside "2356766/PAT APPLD.") with single-ring tulip-shaped Keystone plastic buttons. Two original P-90 pickups with cream plastic covers and outputs of 7.72k at the neck position and 7.58k at the bridge. Single-layer cream plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) on lower treble bout plus three-way pickup selector switch on upper bass bout. 1952 (5/8 inch tall) gold plastic barrel-shaped "Speed" knobs. The potentiometers are stamped "615 0689 211" (IRC, March 1952) and the two original capacitors are stamped "Grey Tiger Type GT 452 .02 MFD 400 VDC." Combination "wrap-under" trapeze bridge/tailpiece. This sixty-eight year-old "time-capsule" is in near mint (9.25) condition. There is some very fine finish checking on the body. There are a few light surface indentations on the back and one small surface mark/'ding' on the top bass bout. The gold finish on the neck is a little rough to the touch - but the gold paint is still there and this is very unusual on this all-gold Les Paul and similarly the hollow bodied ES-295s. The frets are original and show just the tiniest amount of playing wear. This guitar is without a doubt the finest and most original example of an all-gold Les Paul that we have ever seen. Fortunately the neck angle is perfect, just like a late '53 "stop-tail" and therefore makes this a really playable guitar - rather unusual for a 'Trapeze-Tailpiece' guitar… and - it's also one of the best sounding P-90 Les Paul's we have ever heard! Housed in its original Gibson "four-latch" shaped brown hardshell case with pink plush lining (9.00).

Original early fifties 'All-Gold' Les Paul's are very scarcely seen on the market. Compared to the standard 'Gold-Top' finish they are certainly extremely rare and when in fine or near fine original condition they are highly sought after by discerning collectors.

** "Serial numbers were issued starting in early 1953 on the trapeze Goldtop models" (Robb Lawrence. The early years of the Les Paul Legacy. p. 99).

"The first Gibson Les Paul solidbody electric guitar, known simply as the Les Paul Model then but now better known by its descriptive nickname 'gold-top', first went on sale during 1952" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 15).

"The new Les Paul guitar was launched by Gibson in 1952, in the summer, priced at $210, which was about $20 more than Fender's Telecaster sold for at the time…Today, a gold-finish Les Paul model is nearly always called a gold-top thanks to its gold body face…The new gold-top's solid body cleverly combined a carved maple top bonded to a mahogany base, a sandwich that united the darker tonality of mahogany with the brighter sonic 'edge' of maple. Paul said that the gold colour of the original Les Paul model was his idea. 'Gold means rich,' he said, 'expensive, the best, superb'" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, pp. 20-21).