A Near Mint Les Paul SG Junior

This featherweight guitar weighs in at just 5.60 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 bevelled edge, one-piece mahogany neck with a medium profile, and rosewood fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Gold silk-screened "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Junior" on headstock. Black plastic bell-shaped truss-rod cover. Serial number ("30205") impressed into the back of the headstock. Closed-back single-line Kluson Deluxe strip tuners with white plastic oval buttons. One P-90 pickup with a really hot output of 8.32k. The pots are stamped "134 6120" (Centralab May 1961). Two-layer black and white laminated plastic pickguard with eight screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Black plastic bell-shaped knobs with white markings. Jack socket on body face. Earliest style 'slanted' combination "wrap-over" bar bridge/stud tailpiece. Apart from the absolute bare minimum of belt buckle scarring on the back, some fine finish checking and a small amount of varnish wear to the edges of the fretboard, this forty-seven-year-old "Screamer" is in mint condition -- as good as it gets! Housed in the original Gibson brown "alligator" softshell case (8.75) and even complete with its original hang-tag and strings!

"In 1958 Gibson made a radical design change to three of the Les Paul models, and a cosmetic alteration to another. The Junior, Junior 3/4 and TV were revamped with a completely new double-cutaway body shape. Ted McCarty explained the re-design as a reaction to player's requests. 'They wanted to be able to thumb the sixth string,' he said, 'but they couldn't do it if the only cutaway was over on the treble side. So we made them with another cutaway, so they could get up there. We did things that the players wanted, as much as anything.' The Junior's fresh look was enhanced with a new cherry red finish" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, pp. 33 and 36).

"Even in double-cutaway style, the Junior retained its charming simplicity. It is, if you like, the Fender Telecaster of the Gibson line: the guitar for the player who is fed up with all those over-complicated instruments out there and instead seeks heads-down no-nonsense boogie" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 31).

"Considering all the Les Paul models as a whole, sales declined in 1960 after a peak in 1959. By 1961, Gibson had decided on a complete re-design of the line in an effort to try reactivate them...One of the first series of new models to benefit from Gibson's expanded production facilities was the revised Les Paul design, the SG ('Solid Guitar'). At first, these completely new instruments with their highly sculpted, double-cutaway design continued to be named Les Paul models, so guitars of this new style made between 1961 and 1963, with suitable markings are now known as SG/Les Pauls. But by 1963 the Les Paul name had been removed, and the models officially continued as SGs" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 44).