An Absolutely Mint 1956 Tune-O-Matic Les Paul Standard Gold Top

This absolutely mint fifty-two year old Tune-O-Matic Les Paul Standard Gold Top weighs just 8.20 lbs. and has a 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 solid carved maple top. One-piece mahogany neck with a wonderful thick profile, Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 frets and inlaid pearl trapezoid (crown) position markers. Serial number ("61175") inked-on in black on the back of the headstock. The top of the guitar has a 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 with single-ring tulip-shaped Keystone plastic buttons (stamped on the inside "2356766 PAT APPLD."). Two very hot P-90 pickups with outputs of 7.52k and 7.45k. 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. Gold plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. The potentiometers are all original and it has the two original 'Bumble-Bee capacitors. ABR-1 non-retainer Tune-O-Matic bridge with metal saddles and separate "wrap-over" stud tailpiece. Quite simply - this guitar is the best example of a P-90 'Tune-O-Matic' GoldTop that we have ever seen. It is as close to brand new as is possible… The only minor blemishes on this amazing piece are as follows: one the face of the guitar there is a tiny indentation the size of a matchhead one inch from the lower strap button; on the back of the guitar there is a small indentation about two inches from the heal of the guitar; there is a small surface mark on the treble side of the neck by the third fret; there is a tiny amount of edgewear on each side of the lower waist. Thats's it!!! Housed in the original Gibson brown hardshell case with four latches and with pink plush lining (9.25). Complete with the original brown leather strap, hang-tag, instructions, etc. Truly a museum piece.

"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' 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).

"In 1955 the gold-top gained Gibson's new Tune-o-matic bridge. The unit had the facility to adjust individual string-length, improving intonation. Two years later humbucking pickups replaced P90s on the gold-top" (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Gibson Les Paul Book, p. 19).