15 Wild and Interesting Facts about GIBSON Guitars
Published on 09 October 2024
Do you love Gibson guitars? Do you also love all of the history and lore that surrounds the brand? I bet you do! It’s part of being a fully paid-up guitar geek, after all. They are one of the most significant companies in the world, as well as one of the longest serving, so there’s tons of cool stuff to find out and learn about them.
Today, I want to share a few of these with you. 15 in fact, culled from my years of being a Gibson obsessive, not to mention salesman and writer for guitarguitar. The Gibson story is one of innovation, influence and quality, and these 15 little anecdotal pieces all fit into the brand’s grand history. Some of these you’ll no doubt know, others maybe not. All are worth another read, so here they are. Take a comfy seat and join me, why don’t you?
The Facts, At a Glance
The Les Paul was SO Unpopular, it was Discontinued for SEVEN Years
The ES335 was the World’s First Thinline Semi Acoustic Guitar
ES-335’s Have Had at Least 6 Different Shapes Over the Years
There Were Only Between 1400-1712 ‘Holy Grail’ Les Paul Standards Made Between 1958-60
Jimi Hendrix Painted his Flying V with Nail Polish
Eric Clapton’s Fool SG Came About Because of Stolen Les Pauls
Humbuckers Were Invented in 1957 for the Les Paul Standard and Custom
Jimmy Page Bought ‘Number One’ from Joe Walsh
The Most Expensive Les Paul Ever is NOT a Sunburst!
The Most Expensive Gibson Guitar Ever Sold
The Les Paul Was Originally Much Bigger
The Carved Maple Top of the Les Paul was Specifically Because Fender Didn’t Offer One
TV Yellow Was Made for Black and White Televisions
Every Gibson Guitar Gets Two Coats of Paint and 6 Coats of Lacquer
The Gibson Les Paul Custom was the First Guitar to Have an ABR-1 Bridge
The Les Paul was So Unpopular, it was Discontinued for SEVEN Years
The headline says it all, and it’s all true. Gibson’s most famous guitar by far was actually such a hard sell in the early 60s that they gave it the heave-ho in favour of the SG. Whilst nowadays it is acknowledged that Les Paul Sunbursts from 1958-60 are the best guitars ever made bar none, back then, everybody wanted the groovy twang of a surftastic Fender, and the mighty Les Paul certainly did not supply such a sound.
In fact, its gorgeous curves and binding were seen as being a little bit old-fashioned and conservative, compared with the Cadillac-inspired sleekness of the Fender Stratocaster and Jazzmaster. Gibson took the hint and retired their creation (not completely: the odd one still left the Kalamazoo factory) in 1961, and only resurrected it properly in 1968 when the Brits invaded the pop and rock worlds with their Les Pauls and roaring Marshalls.
The ES335 was the World’s First Thinline Semi Acoustic Guitar
Prior to the 335, this type of guitar was all-hollow and had a deeper body. Gibson, under the control of Ted McCarty, took that heritage hollow body design, thinned it out and stuck a block of maple in the middle. The result? The first ever Gibson Electric Spanish 335, which got its name from its original 1958 price: $335.
ES-335’s Have Had at Least 6 Different Shapes Over the Years
You heard of 335’s having ‘Mickey Mouse Ears’, yeah? Not sure what the heck that means? Let me enlighten you. The ES-335, as we know from what I just wrote one second ago, was released in 1958. This model had ever so slightly pointed cutaways (ears, okay?), not so you'd ever really notice, but if you compare them with another 335, you’ll see what I mean.
A year later, in 1959, those ears were more rounded, like Mickey Mouse’s ears, kind of. This is the design that is the most famous, and incidentally, 335’s from 1958-9 are the most valuable, regardless of their lugs. I suppose it’s the initial runs, mixed with a little ‘Holy Grail’ mythos from the Les Pauls of this time, that make them so desirable.
Anyway, over the years, that outline has actually changed a tiny bit now and then, and I have it on someone else’s great authority that there are no less than SIX different variations to the classic 335 shape, and it’s all to do with those ears.
There Were Only Between 1400-1712 ‘Holy Grail’ Les Paul Standards Made Between 1958-60
Yes, those fantastically brilliant LP Standards that are spoken of as ‘Holy Grail’ guitars were not available in huge numbers. Sources differ about this, and that’s mainly because nobody really has the correct data (Gibson certainly don’t!) and so it’s a guessing game. You know how much the internet likes that, don’t you?
That said, I can be reasonably sure that there were no more than 1712 Les Paul Standard Sunbursts with PAF humbuckers made between 1958 and 1960. I actually reckon the real number is a few hundred less than that, but as I say, there’s a lot of chin-wagging on this online.
As I’ve noted before, though: a regular number of units produced by a big guitar company today can easily be 600 guitars a day, so we’re looking at these sacred Les Pauls basically being the equivalent of three days’ worth of today’s production, over three years! Crazy! No wonder they cost as much as a house!
Jimi Hendrix Painted his Flying V with Nail Polish
When the urge to create art strikes, you need to use whatever you’ve got to hand. Hendrix, being a wonderful example of the true artist, grabbed nearby nail polish to decorate his sweet custom-ordered 1969 Flying V. You know the one: it’s black and has flowers painted over it. It’s awesome, and when he gave it away to guitarist Mick Cox, Cox performed absolute sacrilege by having the instrument refinished in black again.
What is wrong with some people?
Happily, it has been restored and is now hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where nobody can get to it with a black spray can. Incidentally, and I’m not condoning any irreversible behaviour here, but Jimi was definitely onto something with the varnish choice. It’s enamel based and will paint on easily and stay colourfast for ages. Just don’t ask me how I know that…
Eric Clapton’s Fool SG Came About Because of Stolen Les Pauls
It’s one of the worst crimes that can happen to a musician (I know, I know, there’s loads) and it kept happening to ol’Slowhand Eric Clapton. He pretty much made history with his iconic use of ‘old Les Pauls’, but unfortunately people kept stealing them.
After he lost two of his favourites, Clapton elected to try a different flavour of Gibson, buying a second hand ‘64 SG, because he always maintained that used guitars had been broken in and felt better.
Undoubtedly the sound worked for him, since this is the guitar with which he recorded Disraeli Gears, but the look may have not quite ‘popped’ enough for him during the psychedelic 60s, and so he commissioned Dutch art collective The Fool (okay, they called themselves The Fool afterwards but that’s minor) to decorate it in oil paints.
No nail varnish for these guys, and the results are extremely famous indeed. Todd Rundgren owned this one for a while and made sure it was properly restored, and had a replica made before selling on the original. Good idea, Todd!
Humbuckers Were Invented in 1957 for the Les Paul Standard and Custom
You probably know this, but it’s worth reiterating that the PAF humbucker so famously created by Seth Lover was designed specifically for Gibson Les Pauls. Not Gibson guitars in general, but Les Pauls in particular. They’d already acquired a famous sound with their P90 pickups, but something was needed to buck the hum, as it were. You know the rest, but here’s a thing for you to think about: a good PAF humbucker and a good P90 in a Les Paul should sound pretty much identical, apart from the missing hum. Ignore the adjectives and use your ears here: you’ll see what I mean.
Jimmy Page Bought ‘Number One’ from Joe Walsh
You don’t really get this much anymore, do you? Rock stars selling each other instruments? Well, Joe ‘Eagle’ Walsh unwittingly made musical history when he decided that Jimmy Page needed to own a Les Paul, and offered him the guitar that actually became his favourite ever electric.
Page, who has since excellently said that Walsh “insisted that I buy it, and he was right”, paid $500 in 1969 for the ‘59 Les Paul Standard, and then promptly created Led Zeppelin II with it. It’s the one you always see him with: Madison Square Gardens, the whole bit. A historic guitar if ever there was one.
He’s a wise chap, that Joe Walsh!
The Most Expensive Les Paul Ever is NOT a Sunburst!
Yes indeed, for all of the hyperventilating that goes on about ‘Sunburst Standards’ from 1958-60, there actually isn’t one at all in the current top ten most expensive guitars ever sold. Nope, none. There’s a couple of Gibsons all right, but no Holy Grails anywhere to be seen. The most expensive Gibson Les Paul on the list is a particularly gorgeous 1957 Goldtop Standard - so, the first year that the guitar wore humbuckers - and this particular one belonged to none other than Duane Allman. It sold for £1,250,000, and here’s a cool fact: the instrument had been given a shoddy refinish by some nameless subsequent owner, and it was none other than Tom Murphy who carried out the restoration work.
And it STILL went for a million and a quarter dollars!
The Most Expensive Gibson Guitar Ever Sold
So that was the world’s most expensive Les Paul, but there was another Gibson guitar on that top ten list. It was an acoustic, and for many people, all I’ll need to type is ‘Love Me Do’ and you’ll know the exact guitar.
Yup, it’s John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E, the one with the pickup and the two control knobs. There’s something very cool about the most valuable Gibson in the world being a songwriter’s acoustic, rather than a lead guitarist’s electric. Everything has its place, but Lennon’s songwriting changed the world, and he did a good bunch of it on this guitar, particularly in the early days.
The Les Paul Was Originally Much Bigger
I wish Gibson would build a few of these, just so we can see what they had in mind. Back in the 50s, the original plan was to make the Les Paul a bunch bigger - more or less 335-sized - to keep the guitar in line with the rest of the models they sold. Unfortunately - and you can no doubt guess this - prototypes were so off-puttingly heavy, they had to go back to the drawing books and reconsider.
The elegant and significantly smaller shape that we all know and love today was a pretty drastic re-rendering of an original design that we can only guess at. If you Google ‘Gibson Log’, you’ll get a picture of the rough idea, but this wasn’t so much a guitar design as a hastily constructed proof-of-concept.
They got in right in the end, though!
The Carved Maple Top of the Les Paul was Specifically Because Fender Didn’t Offer One
Yes, it looks lovely and there is a practical application there (the maple adds brightness to the tone and solidity to the object since maple is far stronger than mahogany), but the chief reason why the Les Paul has a distinctive carved ‘bowl’ top is because Gibson could do it and Fender couldn’t.
The whole modular, slab body ethos of the Fender Telecaster was anathema to the highly luthiered, very traditional carved look and construction of Gibson guitars. Set necks, pitched neck angles and bound edges all screamed luxury when compared to the deliberately sparse Tele. The maple top, then, was a very deliberate nod to this type of opulence, and even more so when the Sunburst models appeared in 1958 with incredibly figured maple tops. These couldn’t be rush-made with a belt sander; they had to be created one at a time by hand, a sure sign of a different approach to the quick bolting of the Fender style.
TV Yellow Was Made for Black and White Televisions
This is another one of those debates that has risen into mythology. ‘TV Yellow’ was created in order to be seen more easily on black and white TVs of the 1950s.
But is it true?
Mmmmmm, not sure. There are three main thoughts on the TV Yellow colour, and I personally reckon they all have plus points and negative points. Here’s the quick version of each, then my take:
- A: Les Paul wanted a ‘wheat’ colour that would look nice on TV, because white guitars played havoc on the studio cameras etc.
- B: TV didn’t actually stand for Television but actually ‘Telecaster Version’, since the colour is very close to Fender’s Butterscotch Blonde. The theory is that Gibson wanted to confuse people by having a Les Paul Junior with the Tele colour and a black pickguard, so they’d go and buy the Gibson.
- Lastly, C: TVs were big central pieces of furniture in the 50s, and were often housed inside big wooden cabinets. Those cabinets were often painted in ‘Limed Mahogany’, which was a very similar colour to TV Yellow. Okay, my thoughts…
- A: Would Gibson not want people on TV to play their fanciest guitars, instead of the student model? Yes, but I can also see Gibson trying out the colour on a new model - regardless of its cost - and then rolling it out to the dearer ones later. Plus: Les Paul played what Les Paul wanted to play, I reckon!
- B: No way. Just no way. This is nonsense! I really can’t see anybody confusing a Les Paul Junior with a Telecaster, no matter how distracted they are. Forget it.
- C: Certainly plausible, at least until you actually check out ‘Limed Mahogany’ and realise that it’s really nothing like TV Yellow at all. And even if it was, why bother calling it that? Another response to Fender having a ‘Broadcaster’? Maaaaybe, but I’m not fully buying it. Each to their own, but I actually think the TV show version makes the most sense.
Every Gibson Guitar Gets Two Coats of Paints and 6 Coats of Lacquer
There isn’t much of a story behind this one, but if you are a Gibson fanatic, these sorts of factoids are interesting anyway: each and every Gibson guitar gets 2 coats of colour and then 6 thin coats of nitrocellulose lacquer. There you go!
The Gibson Les Paul Custom was the First Guitar to Have an ABR-1 Bridge
Yes, that bridge design that you know so well? It wasn’t the first on the Les Paul at all. Prior to the gorgeous Custom model being released in 1954 (with the staple and P90 pickup: way cool), Gibson bridges were a design that was a hangover from the Jazz Age, intense one-piece designs that were built into the trapeze tailpiece.
By 1954, company president Ted McCarty had designed a new model that, for the first time, allowed both string height and intonation to be adjusted.
Facts Galore!
I could keep going here, but those 15 factoids should hopefully be enough to keep you occupied for now. Gibson are such an inherently interesting company - even when you don’t lean into the Robot tuners and Dusk Tigers - that there’s plenty of fun things to check out and learn.
Would like similar articles on other brands? Watch this space!
