A 1963 SG Les Paul Junior with a Medium-to-Thick Neck Profile

1963 Gibson Les Paul Junior.

This featherweight guitar weighs in at just 5.80 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches, a wonderful medium-to-thick profile and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany body with bevelled edge, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with gold silk-screened "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Junior" and serial number "124617" re-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 8.02k. Black plastic pickup cover secured by two screws with "UC-450-1 / 2" stamped on the underside. The pots are stamped "134 6140" (Centralab, October 1961). Two-layer (black on white) laminated plastic pickguard with seven screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Black plastic bell-shaped knobs with white markings. Jack socket on body face. Combination preset ridged "wrap-over" bar bridge/stud tailpiece. This guitar has been expertly re-finished in Pelham Blue (some time ago), one of the most desirable of the Gibson custom colors. All of the original hardware down to every last screw is original to the guitar. Phil X purchased this guitar in Canada in 2013 because Pelham Blue is one of his favorite colors. He has signed "Phil X" with a silver marker on the back of the headstock.

"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).