Gibson Les Paul Special and Junior: The P-90 Single-Cuts

Gibson launched the Les Paul Junior in 1954 as the cheapest guitar in its catalog: a slab of mahogany, one pickup, two knobs and a price of $99.50. A year later it added the Special, which kept the same simple body but added a second pickup and a bound fingerboard. Both guitars kept their P-90 pickups when Gibson moved its more expensive Les Paul models to humbuckers, and that decision is a large part of why players still look for them.

The names cover a lot of ground. Gibson sells single-cut and double-cut versions of each, the Custom Shop makes reissues, Epiphone sells its own copies, and the original guitars changed shape and name between 1954 and 1961. Gibson’s prices and availability below are as listed on Gibson.com on 16 October 2026.

Origin: A Cheaper Les Paul for Students (1954)

The Les Paul itself debuted in 1952 at $210, according to Ward Meeker’s history of the Junior in Vintage Guitar. The 1954 goldtop cost $225, and Gibson introduced the Junior that year. Premier Guitar’s Ted Drozdowski describes the Junior as the first slab-mahogany-body Gibson and the cheapest guitar in the 1954 catalog. At $99.50 it was aimed, in Meeker’s account, at beginners and budget-conscious players. Gibson’s own listing for the model, as of 16 October 2026, is similar: an affordable instrument for students and beginners.

The plan worked. Meeker writes that by its second year the Junior was Gibson’s most popular instrument. For 1956, George Gruhn and Walter Carter put Junior production at 3,129 guitars against 598 goldtops, in their account of the Special for Vintage Guitar.

What the original Junior was

According to Meeker, the 1954 Junior was a single-cutaway slab mahogany guitar with no body binding. A few very early examples used maple. It had a one-piece mahogany neck, an unbound rosewood fingerboard with 22 frets and a 24¾” scale, and one black-covered P-90 in the bridge position, held by the tabs that gave the “dog ear” pickup its name. The bridge and tailpiece was a single lightweight nickel-plated pot-metal wraparound unit without compensation ridges. Controls were one volume and one tone. Early finishes were cherry sunburst and several brown-to-yellow sunbursts, with a brown-into-orange or yellow sunburst dominating from 1956 to 1958.

Meeker also records small running changes. Pearl dot inlays and large “speed” knobs belong to 1954, and Grey Tiger paper capacitors to 1954 and 1955. Plastic dots and “bonnet” knobs arrived in 1955, and a 3/4-scale Junior with a 22¾” scale length was offered from 1956. Meeker’s production totals are 823 for 1954, 2,839 for 1955, 3,129 for 1956, 2,959 for 1957 and 2,480 for 1958. Gruhn and Carter’s 1956 figure matches his, but we found no independent check on the other years, so treat the numbers as approximate.

The Special arrives in 1955

Gruhn and Carter call the Special the last of the original Les Paul family to be introduced. It took the Junior’s slab body and added two soapbar-covered P-90s, and a bound rosewood fingerboard with a pearl logo (but still dot inlays). Gibson’s product page for the single-cut Special, as of 16 October 2026, lists volume and tone for each pickup plus a three-way switch. Gruhn and Carter point out that the Special never received a Tune-O-Matic bridge, only the stud-mounted wraparound. Premier Guitar’s Drozdowski describes the Special as an intermediate model between the Junior and the original Les Paul.

In 1957 Gibson switched its top Les Pauls to humbuckers but left the Special with P-90s. Gruhn and Carter say this drew a dividing line through the Les Paul family. For the humbucker side of that line, see our PAF humbuckers explained guide.

Single-Cut to Double-Cut: 1958 to 1961

The original Junior and Special were single-cutaway guitars. Gruhn and Carter date the double-cut Junior to mid-1958 and the double-cut Special to 1959. Gibson itself says the Special changed in 1958, and a Guitar.com bench test by Huw Price puts the switch in mid-1958 while dating his double-cut Special to the first half of 1959. Sources therefore disagree on the Special’s date, and a spread from mid-1958 to 1959 is the honest answer.

Price notes that the double cutaway needed a redesigned neck joint, with the neck set deeper in the body and the bridge set lower to keep playable action. He found the two shapes sound different, with the single-cut smoother and sweeter and the double-cut brighter, louder and punchier, and, taken in isolation, he preferred the single-cut, though he thought the double-cut might win out for rehearsals and gigs. That is one reviewer comparing two guitars from the 1950s, not a rule. Gruhn and Carter report Special shipments rising from 958 in 1958 to 1,821 in 1959, nearly double.

Later in 1959 the Les Paul name came off the headstock and the guitar became the SG Special, keeping the double-cut body, according to Gruhn and Carter. It took the SG body shape in early 1961. Gibson’s UK product page for the Special Double Cut adds that in 1960 the neck pickup was moved and the SlimTaper neck introduced. The single-cut Special came back in the 1970s, though Gruhn and Carter give 1972 while Drozdowski says a “’55 Special” reissue appeared in 1974. Gruhn and Carter add that the double-cut Special returned in 1976 as a separate model. Our Gibson SG Junior guide follows the one-pickup line after its own change of shape.

What Makes Them Work

The P-90

Walt Fuller developed the P-90 for Gibson in 1946, per Evan Skopp’s P-90 primer in Premier Guitar. It is a single-coil pickup with a short, flat bobbin and adjustable pole pieces. Skopp gives about 8.5k ohms as the average DC resistance of originals and describes the sound as fatter than a Stratocaster pickup, with more midrange and punch. Like any true single-coil it hums. The Junior used the dog-ear mounting while the Special used soapbar covers; both are P-90s. Our P-90 vs humbucker vs single-coil guide covers how it compares with the other pickup types.

Wraparound bridge

The wraparound unit is bridge and tailpiece in one stud-mounted part. On the 1950s Junior, Meeker describes a basic pot-metal unit without compensation. Gibson’s UK listing for the Special Double Cut describes a wraparound design with two intonation screws, so the modern guitars do offer some adjustment.

TV Yellow

Gruhn and Carter say the Special shared its “limed mahogany” finish with the Les Paul TV model, introduced in late 1954. The finish ranged from whitewashed to an almost opaque yellow and became widely known as TV Yellow. Meeker notes that a TV Junior was made too, in far fewer numbers than the sunburst versions. The name is usually explained by black-and-white television, but the sources we read for this article describe the finish without documenting a reason, so we treat that explanation as the popular story.

The Junior and Special Through the Years

Specifications

This table covers Gibson’s current single-cut Les Paul Junior in TV Yellow, as listed on Gibson.com on 16 October 2026.

The Current Gibson Lines

As of 16 October 2026 Gibson lists the models below. We read the product pages directly, except where noted.

Guitar.com’s Crystal Koe reported on 13 November 2025 that Gibson was reissuing the Junior and Special Double Cut models, with hand-wired P-90s on the Special and Orange Drop capacitors in the tone circuits. The two-pickup Tribute DC pages show a $999 price for the Worn Ebony Special and $899 for a Worn Cherry Junior, but both pages show them as unavailable. If you see a Tribute DC for sale, note that Gibson’s descriptions give it a maple neck and a satin finish, which differs from the other models above, so check the spec before comparing prices.

Who Played Them

Meeker’s article lists Leslie West, Steve Howe, Martin Barre, Mick Ralphs, Brad Whitford and Keith Richards among notable Junior players. West is the best documented. In its 2021 tribute, Vintage Guitar says Felix Pappalardi helped him move from a Hagstrom to a sunburst Junior during sessions in 1969, and that he gave the guitar to Pete Townshend during The Who’s Next sessions in 1971. Our Leslie West guide has the rest of his setup, and our Mick Ralphs guide covers his Junior.

The Junior also runs through early British and New York punk. Wallace Marx Jr., writing in Premier Guitar in 2010, describes Johnny Thunders as relying on his Les Paul Jr. for L.A.M.F. and says Mick Jones of The Clash played a Junior with P-90s around 1976 and 1977. Vintage Guitar quotes Sylvain Sylvain saying that he began with Juniors and traded them to Thunders for Thunders’ Les Paul Custom. See our guides to Johnny Thunders, Mick Jones and Sylvain Sylvain.

For the Special, Gruhn and Carter name Carlos Santana, who played both an SG Special and a Les Paul Special, and Bob Marley, whose main guitar they say was a single-cut Special. They also say Pete Townshend played an SG Special before moving to Les Paul Deluxes.

Junior, Special or Something Else

The choice between the two is mostly about pickups. A Junior has one pickup, one volume and one tone, so the sound is set by the guitar, the amp and your hands. A Special gives a neck pickup, a bridge pickup and a three-way switch, a wider range of sounds and a bound fingerboard. Drozdowski describes his 1958 Special as sweet through a Fender Deluxe and spanky and barking through a Marshall, which he credits to the P-90s. In our view, the Special is the safer choice if you play more than one style, and the Junior suits players who like having fewer options.

If you want the same designs for less, our guides to the Epiphone Les Paul Junior and Epiphone Les Paul Special cover Epiphone’s versions. For the same Les Paul body with humbuckers and a carved top, see the Gibson Les Paul Standard, and for how the SG Special fits into the wider family, see Strat vs Tele vs Les Paul vs SG.

Buying Notes

Vintage. Meeker lists two things to check on 1954 to 1956 Juniors: small cracks between the treble-side bridge stud and the pickup route, which can hide under lacquer checking, and signs of replaced tuners such as washer impressions or enlarged shaft holes. In 2023 Drozdowski called a refinished or modified original an easy route to vintage tone and playability. He estimated his refinished 1958 Special at about $4,000 or a little less, and said single-cut Specials with original finishes sold for roughly $13,000 to nearly $18,000, depending on wear. Those figures are his estimates from that date, not a current price guide.

New. On 16 October 2026 Gibson’s US prices ran from $1,599 for the single-cut Junior to $1,799 for the single-cut Special, with the Double Cut Junior at $1,699. Check the cutaway, neck profile and pickup count before you compare prices, because single-cut models use the chunkier 50s neck and the double-cuts use SlimTaper. The Custom Shop reissues listed at $4,199 and $6,499 on that date are a separate tier built to period specifications.

Frequently Asked Questions