One of the last of the 'Trapeze' Tail-piece Les Pauls…

This totally original Les Paul Standard Gold Top weighs just 8.90 lbs. and has nice, fat nut width of just over 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 profile, and Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original thin frets and inlaid pearl trapezoid (crown) position markers. Serial number ("3 0962") inked-on in black on the back of the headstock. 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. Two-layer (black on white) plastic truss-rod cover. Individual single-line "no-name" Kluson Deluxe tuners (stamped inside "2356766/PAT APPLD.") with single-ring tulip-shaped Keystone plastic buttons. Two P-90 pickups with cream plastic pickup covers (with no stamping on the underside) and outputs of 8.60k at the neck position and 7.17k 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. '53 (1/2 inch tall) gold plastic barrel-shaped "Speed" knobs. The potentiometers are stamped "615 0689 316" (ROC, April 1953) and the two original capacitors are stamped "Grey Tiger Type GT 452 .02 MFD 400 VDC." Combination "wrap-under" trapeze bridge/tailpiece.

This fifty-eight-year-old example is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. There are a few small surface indentations on the back and one small area of surface loss on the back just by the 'bass' waist. There is some edge wear and a few surface marks on the body sides. The top is a rich gold and totally free from the usual 'greening'. There are are few small surface marks and indentations mainly on the bass side near the bass bout. There are a few surface marks or scratches on the back of the neck behind the 9th to the 12th fret which have been most certainly caused by a guitar stand. The frets are original and show a minimal amount of wear. This is one of the very last of the 'Trapeze' "Les Paul's" and what is unusual about this particular example is the neck angle, which is just like a late '53 "stop-tail" and therefore makes this a really playable guitar -- truly unusual for a 'Trapeze-Tailpiece' guitar… and - it's one of the best sounding P-90 Les Paul's we have ever heard! The cream plastic 'poker-chip' switch surround is not original to this guitar. The 'poker' chip was sporadically introduced in early 1953 - this is a reproduction that has been fitted at a later time - we have decided to leave it on the guitar - but of course it can be removed if required. The great sounding example is in (8.75) excellent plus condition. Housed in its original Gibson brown four-latch hardshell case with pink plush lining (9.00).

"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).