The Gibson SG Special first appeared under that name in 1963, but began as the Les Paul Special in 1955, and was discontinued in 1971. Construction is pretty straightforward, with a slab Mahogany body and a Mahogany neck with Rosewood fingerboard. Indian Rosewood replaced Brazilian around 1965.
Special
The Gibson Les Paul Special first appeared in 1955, as the fourth version of the now-classic model. The first was the 1952 Gold-Top Les Paul, which was revised in 1953 and 1954 to allow for a steeper neck angle and the introduction of first a stop-bar bridge and then the Tune-O-Matic and stop tailpiece combination.
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MORE →Based on the 1955 advanced (2-pickup) student model, the Gibson Les Paul Special Tribute presents a proven design with some updates, particularly Humbucking pickups and a Maple neck. As a Tribute model, this example gets a lighter, satin finish, still using nitrocellulose lacquer. The body is a two-piece Mahogany slab paired with a three-piece Maple neck for stability and strength.
Introduced in 1955 as an intermediate model, the two-pickup, single cutaway Gibson Les Paul Special’s main difference from the GoldTop Les Paul was the lack of a carved Maple top. This model followed the entry level, single P-90 pickup Les Paul Junior that appeared in 1954. Both models used ‘slab’ Mahogany bodies, Mahogany necks and Rosewood fingerboards – at the time, Brazilian Rosewood.
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MORE →The Gibson Les Paul TV Special was introduced in 1955 as a midway point between the also newly introduced Les Paul Junior and the Les Paul itself. Like the Junior, the Special used Honduran Mahogany for the body – no carved Maple cap like the Les Paul – and the neck, and Rosewood for the fingerboard. The Special, however, had two P-90 pickups and a bound fingerboard; at the time, ‘Rosewood’ meant Brazilian Rosewood.
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MORE →The Gibson 1960 Les Paul Special Double Cut Reissue is a great take on a classic, straight ahead solidbody that delivers plenty of tone via a pair of P-90 pickups. Often referred to as the ‘Les Paul DC’, the Les Paul Special first appeared in 1955 along with the Les Paul Junior, both as lower cost alternatives to the carved-top Les Paul model. Aside from lacking the carved Maple cap and simpler hardware, the Special and Junior construction was similar to the carved-top Les Paul.
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