"Peggy Sue" Meets "Bad to the Bone"

This featherweight (6.50 lbs.) thinline 16 1/4-inch-wide archtop guitar has a nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Single-bound laminated maple body, one-piece mahogany neck with a nice, fat '59 profile, and bound rosewood fretboard with 20 medium jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo. Two-layer (black on white) plastic truss-rod cover. Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic oval buttons. The serial number ("S 9406 24") is stamped in black in side the treble f-hole and the model number ("ES 225TD") is stamped in black inside the bass f-hole. Two wonderfully resonant black P-90 pickups with really hot outputs of 8.47k and 7.99k. Five-layer (black/white/black/white/black) 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. Les Paul combination trapeze bridge/tailpiece. This is a totally original and near mint (9.25) example from the very best year! There is hardly any wear to the original frets and the body and neck of this forty-seven-year-old beauty are hardly marked in any way. Housed in its original brown Gibson 'aligator' softshell case with brown velvet lining (9.00).

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 sizeable quantities. A dual pickup version was subsequently marketed in 1956 and both models remained in production until 1959 at which point they were, at least according to Gibson brochures, 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-225T 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 fitted only to the all-gold ES-295. The ES-225T was the first Gibson electric to be issued with a single pickup placed half-way between the fingerboard and the bridge…The TD model [1956-1959] is identical to the ES-225T save for a dual pickup assembly. It was marketed right from the outset in both sunburst and natural finish. Like the ES-225T, it did not undergo any modifications until its discontinuation in 1959 except that a couple of 225TDs were released with a Tune-O-Matic bridge and a standard trapeze tailpiece" (A.R. Duchossoir, Gibson Electrics -- The Classic Years, p. 229).