GreatDane
"up yours, baby."
from Vintage Guitars Info:
"The 1952 and early 1953 Gibson Les Paul goldtop models are not very playable as a professional instrument because of a shallow neckset, and a badly designed trapeze tailpiece. They do have some collector appeal though, as Gibson's first Les Paul generation. The trapeze tailpiece had two problems: first, the strings wrapped *under* the bar, not allowing the player to "mute" the strings with the palm of the hand. The second problem was if the trapeze was knocked from the side, the whole guitar could go out of tune. This happened because the trapeze tail's string bar was not anchored to the top of the guitar (only string presure and a felt pad kept the bar from moving side-to-side). In addition the neck angle is also very shallow on the trapeze models, so the strings could not be looped over the top of the LP tailpiece (the string action would be too high). Also converting to a 1953 style stop-bar or a tunematic was very very difficult again because of the neck angle. The very earliest Les Paul models also had fretboards with no edge binding and the lead pickup had diagonal mounting screws. Because of the funky Les Paul tailpiece on 1952 and early 1953 models, this version of the Les Paul Standard is generally looked down on by players and collectors.
"Les Paul himself has said he told Gibson about the tailpiece design flaw when he saw the first production models. He explained that the strings were supposed to wrap *over* the bar, not under it, and that the neck angle should be steeper to accomodate this difference in action at the bridge. Apparently it took Gibson a whole year to figure out that maybe Les Paul actually knew what he was talking about! Because of the 1952 tailpiece problems and complaints, by early 1953 the "wrap around stop bar" tailpiece/bridge combo was adopted by Gibson on the Les Paul Goldtop. This rectified the playability problems (the strings wrap over the *top* of the tailpiece, allowing palm mutes). These models are quite nice (though many players still complained because the stop bar can not be intonated perfectly). The early 1953 wrap-around models still had a shallow neck angle, limiting the downward adjustment of the stop bar. But this had the added benefit of keeping the strings close to the pickups, making early 1953 models with wrap tails very loud guitars. But as 1954 approached, the neck angle increased allowing more downward adjustment of the wrap around tailpiece. Regardless the 1953 stop tail Les Paul Goldtops had better playing action, and the tuning was more stable since the stop bar was now anchored to the top of the guitar allowing no movement side-to-side. The previous problem of right-hand palm muting was solved, as was the tuning problems from tailpiece movement. Although this was a big improvement on the 1952 design, it still had its limitations in respect to intonation.
"The conversion from the trapeze to wrap-around tailpiece happened around serial number "3 1300" (with "3 1314" for example having a wrap-around and "3 1359" having a trapeze, so there was some overlap no doubt). Earliest seen wrap-around is serial number "3 0995", so there was definately a mix of wrap-around and trapeze tail Goldtops in the "3 1000" to "3 1400" serial number range). By 1953 a rhythm/treble plastic surround on the pickup selector switch was added. By around serial number "3 22xx", Gibson changed the control cavity route slightly too (no longer routing the ground channel going to the end pin for the original trapeze tailpiece).
"By fall 1955, the tuneamatic bridge and stop tailpiece was adopted on the Les Paul Goldtop (solving the earlier intonation complaints), making the 1955 to 1958 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop a big winner. The combination of P-90 pickups and a tunematic/stop tailpiece is considered by most Les Paul players as a great setup. Hence the late 1955 to early 1957 Les Paul Standard Goldtop is regarded as a very usable and versatile guitar. They played great, sounded great, and looked great. How could it be improved? The tune-a-matic bridge was fitted to a great number of Gibson guitars during 1954-1955 including the Les Paul. It was a great addition to the solidbody line of guitars.
"In early-1957, Gibson changed from P-90 single coil pickups to their new humbucking pickups, making the Les Paul Standard what it is today (one of the most popular electric guitars of all time). The humbucker goldtop is an amazing model and one I would love to find (please email me if you have one for sale!) The new humbucking pickups were not met enthusiastically by players at first. Most Les Paul players still wanted and used the P-90 goldtop models. But this idea eventually changed, making the humbucking pickup Les Paul models very desirable.
"The humbucking pickups were designed by the engineer Seth Lover, who sought a way of eliminating the 60 cycle hum and other interference that single coil pickups exhibited (single coil pickups include the P-90 pickup). His idea was very simple - make a pickup with two smaller pickup coils instead of one big coil, and wire the two coils in series and out-of-phase. This way the hum from one coil cancels the hum from the other. The resulting pickup was not merely one that had no hum, but also that the sound was different. Humbuckers generally produce a higher output signal and also a mellower tone with greater midrange and less treble frequencies.
"The newly designed humbuckers fitted in the 1957 Les Paul goldtops came to be known as "PAF" pickups. This was due to the "Patent Applied For" decal on the bottom side of the pickups. The patent for these was applied for in 1955 and granted in 1959, but Gibson still continued to label their humbucking pickups as "PAF" for at least another three years (in 1963 the PAF label was replaced with "Patent Number" label). Gibson seemed to be in no hurry to apply the patent number to their pickups even after the patent was granted. This was probably to not help the competition copy their pickup design, by telling them which patent to look up at the US Patent Office.
"The final change to the Gibson Les Paul was in 1958, which was largely a visual change. The finish was changed from a "goldtop" to a sunburst. Also the back of the guitar was changed from a brown to a cherry red color. Mid-1958 to 1960 "sunburst" Les Paul Standards are consider to be one of the most attractive electric guitars ever produced (even though they are identical to the 1957/1958 humbucking goldtop model, except for the finish)."