My wife and I went to go see Bad Religion and Social Distortion a couple Fridays ago. I had just sold my Limited Edition Les Paul Junior (those are the ones with the pre-war acoustic Gibson logos on them). Even though it sounded, played, and recorded wonderfully, at 8 lbs 10 oz it just seemed heavy for a Junior. Brian Baker from BR was playing his 1955 Junior so the idea of getting another classic looking Junior had been rolling around my head since then.
I was roaming around Sweetwater late last Saturday night when I happened upon a regular production (original collection) Les Paul Junior with a listed weight of just 6 lbs 10 oz. Woah...that's vintage or custom shop weight! It also had a wonderfully dark fretboard. Sweetwater customer service wouldn't be open again til Monday, but the guitar was in 3 other carts. Not wanting to lose out on an under 7 lb modern regular production junior, I went ahead and paid full retail ($1599 + tax). I did call Sweetwater first thing Monday morning to see if they could shave a little off the price, but since the guitar had already shipped, they were only willing to give me a bit of store credit, which of course I took.
Because of the pickup placement on the ltd edition and original collection juniors, I think of them as '54-'56 Juniors, so I decided to deck this one out accordingly (with a few modern accoutrements). So after I put my order in, I purchased some nickel Dunlop strap locks, a set of drop-in vintage style Gotoh locking turners, conversion bushings, a historic spec single ply truss rod cover, and because Juniors made in 1954 and 1955 came stock with gold speed knobs, I ordered a couple historic spec ones (embossed numbers...not painted), as well as two thumb bleeders. Finally, I ordered a Mojoaxe compensated wraparound bridge for historic reissues (which, thankfully work properly on original collection juniors as well).
Anyway...the guitar and parts arrived and I immediately put it all together. Then I handed it off to my tech for a few final adjustments. I got it back, dialed in the dogear p90 to my liking and I was off and running. Used it at a gig last night and am already markin' up the body.
GWW Case with the big latches and I finally have a proper Gibson truss rod tool!
NOTE: this guitar was made on Valentines Day and inspected on March 12th.
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