An Exceptionally Fine 1955 Les Paul Junior.

1955 Gibson Les Paul Junior.

This 13-inch-wide, electric solid body guitar weighs just 7.20 lbs. Solid mahogany body with two-color brown-to-yellow sunburst finish on top and dark brown finish on back and sides. 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 profile. Unbound Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original thin frets and inlaid pearl dot markers. Headstock with "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Junior" silk-screened in gold. Single-layer black 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 "5 6442" inked-on in black on the back of the headstock. Single-layer black plastic pickguard with three screws. One P-90 pickup in the bridge position with an output of 7.19k. Black plastic pickup cover stamped on the underside "UC - 450-1 / 1". Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. The potentiometers are stamped "615 4781 451" (ROC December 1954). Original "Gray Tiger" capacitor. Gold plastic barrel-shaped 'Speed' knobs. Original combination wrap-over bar bridge/tailpiece with two intonation screws. There is some very fine finish checking on the top and the back. There is a small area of surface/playing wear on the lower bass edge and a couple of very small surface marks and scratches on the back of the neck and a few minute marks on the edges of the headstock. The first two original thin frets show some slight wear and there is also some playing wear on the fretboard at the first and second position. Overall this all original forty-eight year old Les Paul Junior is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition. Housed in the original Gibson three-latch softshell 'Aligator' case with purple felt lining (8.50).

Introduced in 1954, the "budget" Les Paul Junior "was designed for and aimed at beginners. It did not pretend to be anything other than a cheaper guitar. The outline shape of its body was the same as the gold-top and Custom, but the most obvious difference to its Les Paul partners was a flat-top solid mahogany body. It had a single P-90 pickup, governed by a volume and tone control, and there were simple dot-shaped position markers along the unbound rosewood fingerboard. It was finished in Gibson's traditional two-colour brown-to-yellow sunburst, and had the wrap-over bar-shape bridge/tailpiece like the one used on the latest gold-top. The September 1954 pricelist showed the Les Paul Custom at $325 and the Les Paul Junior at $99.50. The gold-top meanwhile had sneaked up to $225" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 25).

"At the time they were intended for guitar-teaching schools...but have now become revered for their direct rock'n'roll spirit" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 23). So successful was this model, that an astonishing 9,750 guitars were shipped from the factory during its production run between 1954 and the end of 1957.