A Totally Original and Near Mint 1955 Les Paul TV Special.

1955 Gibson Les Paul "TV" Special.

This 13-inch-wide, electric solid body TV Special weighs just 6.80 lbs. Solid mahogany body with translucent 'limed mahogany' finish on body and neck. One-piece mahogany neck with a nut width of 1 11/16 inches, a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches and a wonderful thick 'baseball-bat' profile. Single-bound Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original thin frets and inlaid pearl dot markers. Black-faced headstock with "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Special" silk-screened in gold. Two-layer black over white plastic, bell-shaped truss-rod cover with two screws. Three-in-a-line Kluson Deluxe 'single-line' 'no-name' strip tuners with oval white plastic buttons. Serial number "510996" inked-on in black on the back of the headstock. Five-layer black over white plastic pickguard with four screws. Two P-90 pickups with outputs of 7.72k and 8.11k. Black plastic pickup covers stamped on the underside "UC - 450-1 / 2". Four controls (two volume, two tone) on lower treble bout and three-way pickup selector switch on upper bass side. The potentiometers are stamped "615 4190 514" (ROC, April 1955). Two original "Grey Tiger" capacitors. Black plastic barrel-shape "Speed" control knobs. Original combination wrap-over bar bridge/tailpiece with two intonation screws. There is some very fine finish checking and some minimal belt buckle rash on the back (nothing through the finish). There are a few miniscule indentations on the lower edge of the body and some very light surface marks on the edges of the headstock. The first three original thin frets show minimal playing wear but there is virtually no playing wear on the fretboard. Overall this all original fifty-nine year old Les Paul TV Special is in near mint (9.25) condition. Housed in the original Gibson 'Aligator' softshell case with brown felt lining (9.25).

"In 1955, Gibson launched the Les Paul TV, essentially a Junior but with a finish that the company referred to variously as 'natural', 'limed oak' and (more often) 'limed mahogany'. Surviving original TV models from the 1950s reveal a number of different colours, with earlier examples tending to a rather turgid beige, while later ones are often distinctly yellow. Today there is much debate about where the model's TV name came from...One such theory says that the TV name was used because the pale colour of the finish was designed to stand out on the era's black-and-white TV screens. This seems unlikely, not least because pro players appearing on television would naturally opt for a high-end model...Others say the guitar followed the look of fashionable contemporary furniture, where the expression 'limed' was used for a particular look. Certainly Gibson promoted the Les Paul TV as being 'the latest in modern appearance'. There's also been a suggestion that 'TV' might be a less than oblique reference to the competing blond-coloured Telecaster made by Fender. But in fact the name was coined to cash in on Les Paul's regular appearances at the time on television on The Les Paul & Mary Ford Show. This was effectively a sponsored daily ad for a toothpaste company, for which the couple signed a $2million three-year contract in 1953. Gibson reasoned that if you'd seen the man on TV, well, now you could buy his TV guitar. Following a reader's enquiry to Guitar Player in the 1970s, a Gibson spokesman confirmed that 'the Les Paul TV model was so named after Les Paul's personal Listerine show was televised in the 1950s'" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 28).

"In 1955, the original line of Les Paul models was completed with the addition of the Special, effectively a two-pickup version of the Junior, finished in the TV's beige colour (but not called a TV model -- a cause of much confusion since). The Special appeared on the company's Spetember 1955 pricelist at $182.50" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 29).

The Gibson shipping records show that out of a total of approximately 700 Les Paul TV Special models made between 1955 and 1958, only about 275 TV Specials were shipped in 1957.