ARCHIVED • SOLD
1954 Gibson Les Paul Junior
With a slab mahogany body, unbound rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays, single "dog-ear" P-90 pickup, and pickguard screwed directly onto the face of the guitar, the Les Paul Junior was intended as a more affordable guitar. Basically, the solid-body equivalent to the successful ES-125 in their hollowbody range. Priced at $99.50, the Les Paul Junior was met with immediate success upon its release.
This 1954 Gibson Les Paul Junior is one of approximately 820 guitars to have shipped in the model's first calendar year of production. A beautiful example of a 1950s Gibson solid body, this Les Paul Junior boasts an incredible patina, wonderful neck profile, and heavenly tone. The single P-90 pickup offers a full and powerful voice that is warm and rich while retaining clarity and note definition. With a deep and round neck carve and a new set of frets installed in-house, this ‘54 Junior delivers excellent playability.
The guitar is largely original apart from a few pieces of hardware, frets, and the pickup lead. The brackets of the P-90 pickup baseplate have been slightly recessed into the body, allowing for slightly more room between the pickup and strings and correcting any issues posed by the low neck angle of the early 1950s Les Pauls. While this guitar would have originally been outfitted with 1/2" bridge posts and bushings that often resulted in post lean, full length 1" studs and bridge posts have been installed instead. The bridge posts appear to be '50s Gibson parts; however, these longer posts did not become standardized on wrap-tail guitars until 1956. The output jack plate is a reproduction part that was fashioned in house, and there are several replaced screws throughout the guitar.
Added up, this is an exciting 1954 Les Paul Junior that delivers crunchy and powerful rhythm tones and soaring single note response with incredible sustain for leads. It's got all the vibe and unquantifiable magic that one hopes to find in a '50s Gibson solid body.
Scale length of 24-3/4", nut width just shy of 1-11/16", 1st fret depth of 0.877 and a 12th fret depth of 0.977". Pickup DC reading of 7.6K. Weight of 7lbs 5oz.
With period correct Melody Maker chipboard case.
