"Peggy Sue" Meets "Bad to the Bone"

This featherweight (6.10 lbs.) thinline 16 1/4-inch archtop guitar has a full scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Laminated maple top, back, and sides, one-piece mahogany neck with a nice, fat '59 profile and a nut width of 1 3/4 inches. Rosewood fretboard with 20 jumbo frets and pearl dot inlays. Individual Kluson Deluxe closed-back tuners with white oval plastic buttons. Two wonderfully resonant black P-90 pickups with outputs of 8.32k and 7.65k. Five-layer (black/white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Gold plastic bell-shape "Bell" knobs. Les Paul combination trapeze bridge/tailpiece. Apart from some minimal body checking and very minor belt buckle wear, this is a totally original and near mint example from the very best year! Housed in its original brown Gibson hardshell case with orange plush lining (8.50).

The total production run of ES-225s between 1955 and 1959 was 2,212 guitars, with only 728 of them made in 1959, and selling then at a modest $229.50. Many great guitarists currently use an ES-225TD, including "The Wild Man" of Rock, Ted Nugent, and the "Bad to the Bone" George Thorogood, but back in the fifties, one of the better-known advocates was Niki Sullilvan of Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

Introduced in 1955, the ES-225T (with one P-90 pickup) was the first thinline electric to be produced in sizable quantities. A dual pickup version was subsequently marketed in 1956, and both models remained in production until 1959, when, according to Gibson brochures, they were replaced by the ES-330T/TD. In fact, the ES-125TC/TCD later emerged as the true successors of the ES-225T/TD. The overall shape and construction of the ES-225 can be likened to a thin-body ES-175. The model is primarily characterized by its Les Paul combination bridge/tailpiece, which in 1955 was only fitted to the all-gold ES-295. The ES-225 was the first Gibson electric to be issued with a single pickup placed half-way between the fingerboard and the bridge.