A Really Accurate Re-Issue from the Gibson Custom Art and Historic Shop

This 2004 TV Special from the Gibson Custom Art and Historic shop is certainly one of the most accurate 're-issues' that we have seen. It has a 12 3/4-inch-wide body that weighs 8.10 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Solid mahogany body, one-piece mahogany neck with a medium profile and a bound rosewood fretboard with 22 medium-thin frets and inlaid pearloid dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and "Les Paul Special" silk-screened in gold. Two layer black over white plastic bell shaped truss rod cover with two screws. Kluson Deluxe single line (three-per-side) strip tuners with white plastic oval buttons. Serial number ("0 4138") inked on in black on the back of the headstock. Two nicely balanced P-90 pickups with outputs of 8.02k and 8.15k. Five-layer (black/white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard with four screws. Four controls (two volume, two tone) on lower treble bout, plus three-way pickup selector switch on upper bass horn. Black plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. Inside the control cavity are two 'Bumble-Bee' capacitors as used on the original Les Pauls of the fifties. Original (slanted)combination wrap-over bar bridge/tailpiece. A mint (9.50) example housed in it's original Gibson custom art and historic black hardshell case with five latches and maroon plush lining (9.50).

This really is a quite outstanding reproduction from the Gibson Custom Art and Historic Shop of one of the favorite guitars of the fifties… our only criticism is the color which is a little greenish compared to the original wheat color.
That said this is a remarkable re-issue in so many ways… we have sold many original TV Specials and have actually compared the specifications of this guitar to a 1958 single cut (one of the last ones ever made) TV Special that we have in our inventory (stock # 00850, $22,500) - the results are very interesting… the weight of the re-issue is just 2 ounces more; the nut width and the fretboard widths at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 21st frets are almost identical to within .001 of an inch. The neck profile up to the third fret is identical, at the 5th, 7th and 9th frets the re-issue is actually .004 thicker in profile than the original 1958 (probably more like a '55). The pickup outputs are nicely balanced and perfectly consistent with those of the fifties and they have even gone to the trouble of using the original style 'Bumble-Bee' capacitors in the control cavity. Best of all this lovely little guitar feels great and has lots of growl… extremely good value for money in these hard times…

"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 $2million 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).