A Totally Original Early 1956 Tune-O-Matic Les Paul Standard Gold Top.

1956 Gibson Les Paul Standard Gold Top (Tune-O-Matic).

This exceptionally fine fifty-four year old guitar weighs just 9.40 lbs. Solid mahogany body with a carved maple top. One-piece mahogany neck with a nice thick profile, Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original frets and pearl crown position markers. Single-layer cream plastic pickguard. Two really hot P-90 pickups with strong outputs of 7.68k and 7.96k. 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. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge and separate stud tailpiece. There is very little wear to the original frets. Overall, this guitar is one of the best examples that we have ever seen. There is no fading to the back or neck and no greening to the gold top. Housed in the original Gibson "Bulb Headstock" five-latch Lifton brown hardshell case with pink plush lining (9.00). "The first Gibson Les Paul solidbody electric guitar, known simply as the Les Paul Model then but now better known by its descriptive nickname 'gold-top', first went on sale during 1952" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 15).