A Wonderfully Light - Very Early 1960 Les Paul Junior… a.k.a. 'The Baseball Bat'

1960 Gibson Les Paul Junior

This super light guitar weighs just 6.90 lbs. Solid mahogany 'slab' body with rounded edges. One-piece mahogany neck with a nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches, a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches and a wonderful thick 'baseball-bat' profile rising gently from behind the Ist fret (0.94 inch); 3rd fret (0.94); 5th fret (0.95); 7th fret (0.98); 9th fret (0.99); 12th fret (1.01) and 15th fret (1.01 inch). Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul / Junior" silk-screened in gold. Black plastic bell-shaped truss-rod cover with two screws. Closed-back single-line Kluson Deluxe strip tuners with white plastic oval buttons. Serial number "0 4775" inked-on in black on the back of the headstock. One super hot black P-90 pickup with a huge output of 8.01k. Black plastic pickup cover stamped on the underside "UC - 450 - 1 / 1". Single-ply 'tortoiseshell' plastic (0.08 inches thick) pickguard with four screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on the lower treble bout. Black plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. The potentiometers are stamped "134 6005" (Centralab, February 1960) and the capacitor is the requisite 'Bumble-Bee' type. Combination "wrap-over" bar bridge/stud tailpiece with two intonation screws. Housed in the original Gibson three-latch softshell 'Aligator' case with purple felt lining (8.75). There are a few very minor dings, mainly on the sides of the body, and there appears to be a very small 'extra' screwhole under the pickguard - but we are absolutely certain that this has been there since the day this guitar was made. This is an exceptionally fine (9.00) example, totally original, the cherry color rich and unfaded. Housed in its original "alligator" softshell case (8.00).

This guitar has all the features of a '59 Les Paul Junior - Gibson thinned out the neck profile on most of their guitars in early 1960 but this example was made before the change and features that 'oh-so-perfect' Baseball Bat neck.

"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).