A Rare Little Beastie!

This rare little guitar weighs just 7.20 lbs. and has a nice comfortable nut width of just over 1 9/16 inches and a three-quarter Gibson scale length of 22 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany body, one-piece mahogany neck with a medium to thick profile, and rosewood fretboard with 19 frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Junior" silk-screened in gold. Black plastic bell-shaped truss-rod cover. Closed-back single-line Kluson Deluxe strip tuners with white plastic oval buttons. The serial number ("7 2745") is inked-on in yellow on the back of the headstock. Single P-90 pickup in the bridge position with a strong output of 7.18k. Single-layer black plastic pickguard with three screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Gold plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. The pots are dated "134 713" (Centralab March 1957). Combination "wrap-over" bar bridge/stud tailpiece. This guitar is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition, with only a few very small and insignificant surface chips on the edges of the guitar. This is an exceptional example of one of only 222 "three-quarter" Les Paul Juniors shipped in 1957 (compared to 2,959 "full-size" Juniors shipped that year). Housed in the original Gibson brown "alligator" softshell case with brown felt lining (8.50).

"In 1956, the only novelty consisted in the appearance of a '3/4' version of the Les Paul Junior with a scale length of 22 3/4" instead of 24 3/4". The fingerboard of the '3/4' version had 19 frets instead of 22 and the neck joined the body at the fourteenth fret instead of the sixteenth. Except for its 'short' neck, the Les Paul Junior '3/4' was otherwise strictly identical to the regular edition and cost the same price" (A.R. Duchossoir, Gibson Electrics from the Origins up to 1961, p. 73).

"The following year [1956] Gibson added a Junior 3/4 model. It had a shorter neck, giving the model a scale-length some two inches shorter than the normal Junior. Gibson explained in its brochure at the time that the Junior 3/4 was designed to appeal to 'youngsters, or adults with small hands and fingers'" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 29).

This little beastie actually does everything that its big brother can do! If you have small hands and you are comfortable not playing beyond the 15th fret -- then this one will give you all the great resonance and gutty sound that you would expect from a '57…and all that at a fraction of the price of a comparable '57 Les Paul Junior!