The "Cinderella" of Rock and Roll

This super rare 12 3/4-inch-wide electric solid body weighs just 7.20 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany body, one-piece mahogany neck with a wonderful fat profile, unbound rosewood fretboard with 22 frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul TV Model" silk-screened in gold. 'No-name' Kluson Deluxe strip tuners with white plastic oval buttons. Serial number ("6 2839") stamped in black on the back of the headstock. One hot P-90 pickup with an output of 7.51k. Black plastic pickguard with three screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Black plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. The potentiometers were replaced by the Gibson factory sometime in 1960 and are stamped: "134 936" and "134 6005" (Centralab September 1959 and January 1960). Original combination wrap-over bar bridge/tailpiece. The guitar has been expertly refretted with original guage fretwire. There is a small area of belt-buckle wear on the back of the guitar measuring approximately 2 inches x 1 1/2 inches. There is also some edge wear, a couple of small marks on the back of the neck and some slight finish checking but otherwise this fifty-two year old lightweight wheaten wonder with the most perfect neck you could ever wish for plays and sounds just like the guitar of your dreams… Housed in the original Gibson brown alligator cardboard case with brown felt lining (8.75). Complete with the original brown leather guitar strap and an original box of Gibson "Set No. 40" .014 - .058 strings.

If guitars could only talk as well as sing: this T.V. Jr. was formerly owned and played on tour and in the studio by Tom Keifer - "one of hard rock's last real gypsies" - leader of Cinderella, a band whose gritty embrace of Delta Blues sources led Rolling Stone to declare that "top notch musicianship and streetwise savvy…make Cinderella a force to be reckoned with." Reviewing the band's album, Heartbreak Station, Rolling Stone gushed: "amazingly likable and even brave: You'd have to search pretty far to find white blues this consistently catchy and rhythmic, this varied, [and] this free of gut-busting macho slop." With over fourteen million records sold, Cinderella has proven that critical acclaim and popularity are not mutually exclusive.

This TV Junior, to all appearances simple, shy and demure, only looks innocent. Plug her in and she becomes a brazen hussy that sneers, gets feisty, low-down and raunchy when allowed to express herself. This baby's been around the block and knows the score. She's savvy from nut to tailpiece, with a hot P-90 that'll make you swear you're hearing flames erupt out of your amp; you'll need a pick made out of asbestos. Together with an autograph letter signed and dated 4/26/04 from Tom which reads "I played this Gibson Les Paul T.V. Jr. (serial #6 2839) on tour and in the studio with my band Cinderella. Tom Keifer."

"In 1955, Gibson launched the Les Paul TV, essentially a Junior but with a finish that the company referred to variously as 'natural', 'limed oak' and (more often) 'limed mahogany'. Surviving original TV models from the 1950s reveal a number of different colours, with earlier examples tending to a rather turgid beige, while later ones are often distinctly yellow. Today there is much debate about where the model's TV name came from...One such theory says that the TV name was used because the pale colour of the finish was designed to stand out on the era's black-and-white TV screens. This seems unlikely, not least because pro players appearing on television would naturally opt for a high-end model...Others say the guitar followed the look of fashionable contemporary furniture, where the expression 'limed' was used for a particular look. Certainly Gibson promoted the Les Paul TV as being 'the latest in modern appearance'. There's also been a suggestion that 'TV' might be a less than oblique reference to the competing blond-coloured Telecaster made by Fender. But in fact the name was coined to cash in on Les Paul's regular appearances at the time on television on The Les Paul & Mary Ford Show. This was effectively a sponsored daily ad for a toothpaste company, for which the couple signed a $2 million three-year contract in 1953. Gibson reasoned that if you'd seen the man on TV, well, now you could buy his TV guitar. Following a reader's enquiry to Guitar Player in the 1970s, a Gibson spokesman confirmed that 'the Les Paul TV model was so named after Les Paul's personal Listerine show was televised in the 1950s'" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul, p. 28).

The Gibson shipping records show that 511 Les Paul TVs were shipped in 1956.