A brief history and popular models

Introduced in 1954 The Les Paul Jr. was a student model version of Gibson’s now famous solid body Les Paul Goldtop. The Junior offered a budget version of the Goldtop and the newly released ornate Les Paul Custom. The Junior utilized a very basic slab body design with one P-90 pickup, a simple wrap around stop tailpiece, lower end open back Kluson strip tuners dot fingerboard inlays and a standard sunburst finish. Due to the growing popularity of television Gibson developed an alternate finish option for the Les Paul Jr, a pale yellow that would show up as bright white on a TV screen, the finish was dubbed “TV” Yellow.

The Les Paul Jr. utilized a single cutaway in the body on the treble side of the body similar to its predecessor, the Les Paul Goldtop. It retained this feature until 1958 when Gibson introduced the double cutaway body style. The new double cutaway body style retained all the other features of the Les Paul Jr. but two new finishes would emerge. The Standard finish for the Les Paul Jr. from that point on would be Cherry Red and the TV finish was changed from a light wheat color to a bright banana Yellow. The new body style was initially slab cut like its predecessor but the edges would gradually become more rounded.  In 1961 Gibson once again redesigned the Les Paul model across the board and the SG was introduced. The Les Paul Junior followed suit and took on the SG styling. In early 1963 Les Paul’s endorsement signature was removed and it was simply be called the “SG Jr”.

The 1958 Gibson Les Paul Junior

The 58 Les Paul Junior featured a cherry finish.  The body style changed to a double cut but retained the mahogany slab body and a single p-90 pickup.

The 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Junior

In 1961 the new SG body style debuted on the Les Paul Junior, now called the Gibson Les Paul SG Junior but later the name would be changed to the more appropriate “SG Junior”.

The 1966 Gibson SG Junior

By 1965 the guitar was now called the “SG Junior”. This guitar is in an unusual Pellham blue color as Gibson offered a wider range of color options.

The 1986 Les Paul Junior

In more recent years the Jr. was produced in single cut, double cut and the SG body styles.