QUESTION
I just inherited 3 vintage guitar from my father. I went to have them appraised and my father had custom truss rod covers made with his name on them . What are the correct truss rod covers for these 3 guitars. One is a 1953 Gibson Les Paul goldtop , the second is a 1959 Gibson Les Paul jr and teh third is a 1958 Gibson Les Paul gold top with the big pickups . any info you give me would help greatly
REPLY
Thank you for your e mail I will go over the various truss rod covers that were found on vintage Gibson les paul guitars for you. again i am going by what you told me i have not seen the guitars so by the information you gave me i will tell you teh correct one
The first Gibson Les Paul standards which were in gold have a truss rod cover 2 ply black white black material. there was no name or model on these cover. These early covers had fine lines or ripples running horizontally across cover only seen upon close inspection called roll marks and are back is white. these have a wide bevel or white border around them compared to the new ones. The Les Paul customs has the words Les Paul custom in script on the cover. the script is finer than the late 1960’s Les Paul customs
The next version on on the 1957-1959 les paul standards both goldtops and flametops were basically the same . Again the Les Paul customs bear the same script and wording on the top of covers. By 1960 the truss rod cover looks exactly the same but there will be no lines visible in the plastic . 1960 was a transition years for Les Paul’s in the fact that several features changed on the Les Paul including some of the plastic parts so this an important thing to remember
The 1954-1960 Gibson Les Paul jr. truss rod covers are totally different they are one ply black plastic . they look and feel very cheap as would be expected because these were basically student guitars. they have no ripples in plastic and are very hard to describe except that eh plastic is a bit thinner on the original ones than the repros I have seen today
Finally one model you did not mention but I will mention is the 1960 -1962 gibson Les Paul sg model. These just have the words Les Paul in script on the covers and agin it is a two ply with a wide white bevel .
I hope this helps o make sure you can e mail me pictures at THE PARTS DRAWER and i can tell you exactly what ypu need
JIm Pasch
Tags: gibson les paul, gibson truss rod covers, vintage gibon truss rod covers, vintage gibson les paul parts, vintage guitar parts