Gibson Les Paul Junior

1991, USA, solid mahogany, 22 frets, two P100s, Mother of pearl dots and Gibson logo, Grover tuners, heritage cherry, cream binding on the fretboard. Got it with a case, strap & locks etc etc. Otherwise just like all the others. You can get a korean guitar for this much with a lot of features, but will it be better in 10 years time? The wood and trimmings on these are still Gibson even if it is the cheep model, and it will be a lifetime instrument.

Music style is Blues/Rock (my main love), with some sloppy punk stuff for fun and some popish or country numbers when the need arises. I've played through two different amps, a peavey classic 30 which had a great tone, lots of cut and punch. Gave a very bright sound surprisingly and was lots of fun to gig with as it was simple and reliable. Moved to a laney VC50, which had more on offer, but didn't deliver reliability. The laney brought a little more base to the mix. Went back to the classic 30, and messed with an EQ pedal. Set up is LP EQ C30. The guitar is very quiet, even the 3 way switch is pretty good, surprising as the guitar gets sweat all over. The sound is a point of contention on these. It suits me perfectly, I can get a glassy neck sound, with a beautiful round tone, through to a cutting ACDC tone and a harsh stonesy (stratish) tone. These pick ups are much maligned, but I would describe this guitar as having some of the tele sound without harshness, a touch of SG junior and a little bit of PAF. It does none of these things perfectly, but it has its own warm bluesy character. Can certainly rip into a white stripes tune with all the rawness and raunch needed. Simply, it's a great little rock and blues axe without the wanker stickers and tosser trem.
My dislikes - no tosser trem. Bit round for country.

Perfect for me. The finish is in great condition, the pick ups in the right spot. My only complaints are that Gibson seemed to finish the fretboard binding really badly in this era, like a 3 year old filed it to the frets, and the way they banged the frets in the left these crappy dents either side, really shoddy.

Played all the time, stands up to it all. The gibson thing - just don't drop it. Hardware is all going the distance, as is the finish. Strap buttons suck, but you know that. I do depend on this guitar, and it delivers. I keep a crappy back up, but I've only used it when I broke a string (my fault).

Outstanding. Swift response, very helpful. I was simply after some details, but I got a raft of advice etc.

This guitar is value. I've been playing 15 years, I own the amps mentioned, bunch of pedals (baggage), an old strat copy and a Maton acoustic. If it were stolen I'd probably try to get another, but I'd really like a strat for a while, Hmmm. I love the sustain, the sounds and the way it fits me. I hate the strap buttons. My favourite feature is it's familiarity and versatility. I compared it to Studios, Standards, Teles, Strats, a Hawke, some Maton electrics and a raft of korean stuff including PRS, Epi, ESP and this thing has a different sound and different quality to all of them. It just fitted me.

2003 vintage (tobacco) sunburst, USA built (of course). Mahogany, rosewood etc, it's a Junior, for pete's sake, you know what it's made of! One good pickup, a volume and tone are all any decent guitarist needs.

I use it for the second, more rocky, set with my current band - yes the whole set, not just 3 or 4 songs! And if the tuning needs a tweak between numbers that's what it gets. We all have in line tuners these days don't we?
It's undoubtedly the best sounding guitar around, and it's NOT a one trick pony! You just got to learn how to back off the vol and tone controls, and you can get a great range of tones . I've been a confirmed strat/tele user for years, but after playing this they just sound brittle and annoying.

Guitar was pretty well set up on arrival - but I did lower the nut slots a touch to improve playability and intonation on the lower frets. The compensated bridge gives perfectly good intonation, and CAN be adjusted by the little grub screw at each post. The finish is pretty good - certainly better than on some Gibsons I've looked at in recent years. Frets, fret ends etc all finely done, making it feel like a guitar you've had for years.

Some guitars you just know you are never going to part with - this is one. I played a '58 junior recently - that's what inspired me to get this - and I'm looking forward to the day when this has matured into a real vintage guitar. I never gig without a back-up guitar - you look really stupid if you break a string and can't just swap guitars and carry on. Strap buttons are an issue, but bigger Fender style ones don't look right and straploks ruin the appearance of any guitar. Just get a strap with a good stiff leather fitting at the end, and leave it on - that way the holes won't get stretched.

Never had to deal with them.

Hey - it's my latest baby, and it's soooo cute, and it SCREAMS!!

newer model,made between 2000-2002...nitro finish,one p-90,wraparound bridge(yes,you can adjust the intonation via 2 allen screws),neck is hefty but not too big,came with decent gigbag...

i've had a few paul's(a standard and a RI 'black beauty' w/soap bars,both nice)and since selling those haven't been much of a solidbody gibson person,but the jr is great...it just sounds huge and you can get quite a bit of variety with the volume/tone knobs, even though there is just one pickup...a bassman or deluxe reverb(with some pedal OD) is what i usually use it with and it's a great combination.

the previous owner had it set up a little ham fisted,but it was easy to lower the action/adjust the neck and set intonation properly-took 15 minutes...going by other reviews i'll assume the factory setup was at least pretty good,but i can't rate it.

built very sturdy-should last a long time and will get even better...mine had dunlop straplocks on it,not sure if they were stock. tuning stability doesn't seem to be a problem with mine,btw-the 'gibson deluxe' machine heads aren't the best you can get,but they totally work fine. are there known problems with wraparound bridges after a while? even though you can't intonate them quite as well as a tune o matic,it gets much closer than i thought possible and there aren't as many parts to wear out/strip,etc...overall,i think it's very reliable.

if nothing else,this guitar has made me appreciate the 'gibson thing' more-i wanted something to fit sonically between a tele and a p-90 hollowbody,and the LPjr was a great choice.

It has a neck, body and a pick-up. That's it!
Mine is a 2002 .. one of the last to be made. It is tobacco sunburst.
This gets a 9 here because you can't alter the intonation .. but then it does have the compensated tail-piece and it appears to be as near as dammit intoned.
You CANNOT use this thing for a full gig because it won't stay in tune as well as a modern design guitar (my PRS gets tuned once a year whether it needs it or not...) but it is bullet proof. A lot of people here have said change the strap-buttons. I agree, the Gibson ones are truly awful .. you'd be better off gaffer-taping the strap on than using them.

Well ... it sounds like a P-90! There is nothing else like it. If I want complex tonal variety I use my PRS, if I want clean I use my Strat, if I want mayhem I use the Gibson! It truly sounds fantastic through a good valve amp (I use Cornford and Orange)but it isn't subtle. Use a nice overdriven tone on the amp and then adjust everything else with the guitar. This guitar is the reason Paul Reed Smith started to build guitars the way he did .. his first couple of attempts were LPJ copies.

I have owned several Les Paul Standards. I have sold every one of them. Why? Because Gibson build quality(until very recently)was attrocious. How about the Gibson logo on the headstock of a '60 Classic actually falling off, along with the lacquer holding it on!.. or the three-way switch being wired completely wrong on a Standard so that I had to re-wire it the day I got it home!.. I have more but I won't bore you...

HOWEVER! The Junior is built (almost) to perfection. This one is staying with me. There are no complex wiring schemes for somone to get wrong on a boring Friday afternoon in Nashville, there are no inlays to fall out, there is no nickel to tarnish on the pick-ups. PRS it isn't, but for Gibson this is a very well built guitar indeed. (You guessed it, I'm not a huge Gibson fan on the whole!)

The set-up was spot on straight from the factory (not that there's a lot to get wrong .. two-thumbwheels under the tail piece and a nut)The fret-job was fine.

As I mentioned above the only weak link is the tuners, but if you string it properly it's ok for a good 3-4 songs before it starts to cause the audience to wince!

There are enough of the originals still going strong to suggest this one should last long enough to pass down to my kids.

The lacquer is already starting to dull where my arm rests on the body, but it's nitro-cellulose .. that's what happens. It just wouldn't be a Gibson if it was too shiny! It alledgedly sounds better than a polyurethane finish and who am I to argue. If Gibson want to risk blowing up their factory everytime they spray a guitar, that's up to them. I'm 3000 miles away, I won't hear a thing!!

Strap-buttons: Bin them asap and get strap-loks. Cheaper than your beloved hitting the deck midway through the second verse! Keep the originals just in case .....

Called them once. They answered the phone. Good enough for me.

This guitar, as another reviewer has already said, is a one-trick pony. But that trick is a very, very good one.

If you want simplicity, a good rock-n-roll tone and a solid, reliable guitar get one. Gibson have, for some bizzare reason, stopped making this now. The only alternative is the custom shop version for three-times as much. Find one of these and hang onto it. Even the eighties/nineties (?) version with a tune-a-matic bridge is appreciating in value now. Just don't try and do a gig with just this guitar unless you enjoy tuning-up between every song. I know, i tried it .... I did sound damned good though!!

It's unlikey to get stolen, I've tied a Rottweiller to it ...

I can even get used to the 'G' word on the headstock!!

2002 model. The simplicity is why this guitar can sing and is so light and easy to play at the same time! I say quality neck joint, quality finish, quality tuners and bridge setup. Perfect frets and a screaming P-90 with .022 caps and nice volume and tone swells make this and excellent feature filled guitar! Close to the SG Junior but more solid and woody sounding.

Leslie West ;) Gary Moore!

Perfect two years and counting...

Rock Solid. This neck joint has to be the strongest thing going since it has no neck pickup and mounts at the 16th fret!

Gibson is the best and very fast for parts or information. Talking to managers is no problem either.

Again the simplicity is why this guitar can sing and is so light and easy to play at the same time! I say quality neck joint, quality finish, quality tuners and bridge setup. Perfect frets and a screaming P-90 with .022 caps and nice volume and tone swells make this and excellent feature filled guitar! Buy it if you can find it. This will be a classic in years to come! Please don't steal this. I would have to hurt people.

This is a 2002 Les Paul Junior, 22 frets, made in the USA. Solid Mahogany body and neck, one P-90 and a vol & tone control. Mine came in a beautiful antique sunburst (it really is beautiful to look at!) The tuners are inexspensive ones like they used in the 50's. Tail piece is a simple wrap around bar type. It came with a gigbag.

I have always loved the sound of Les Paul Juniors with P-90 pick-ups and had one in the late 60's that I sold in a moment of maddness. Well 40 years later I decided to buy another and I have to say that this is an excellent reissue of the guitar I remmember. The neck plays very well and the setup was excellent out of the box. The sound is somewhere between a single coil strat and a humbucker, it is very warm yet is not precise like a strat pickup. It sounds incredible through my Victoria 410 Bassman. I have several very expensive guitars but this one sounds the best when playing blues!! You can get a slight overdrive that makes notes sound alive depending how hard you hit the strings. I am impressed with the differents sounds that can be obtained by using the volume and tone control settings and how you hit the strings. I was even able to get a warm jazz sound out of this single bridge pickup.

The guitar was well set-up from the factory, the finish is excellent and the neck has a great vintage feel to it.

This guitar should last a long time, it is so simpe in construction and function that there is very little to go wrong.

Never dealt with Gibson.

I've been playing for almost 40 years and have many name brand guitars and amps, but this one is special and is an outstanding bargin for the price. If it were stolen I would immediately look for another.

Made in 1986, right here in the good ole U.S. of A.Features are the best. Set mahogany neck with rosewood figerboard and dot inlays. decal "gibson" and "les paul junior"logos, deluxe kluson tuning machines(as you have probably already read these aren't the greatest, but they "do the job") Mahogany "slab" body with single P-90 (best pickup ever made ,and interestingly one of the first production pickups in history thanks gibson!)single volume and tone controls. Tune-o-matic and stop tailpiece, yeah not true to the oringinal LP junior design, but better improved intonation. Black pickguard.

Sound is godlike. Believe me this is the most versatile guitar due to it's combintaion of thick single coil p-90 tone and it's nice thick body, and the conrols, you can't mess it up,just keep the volume above 1, and the tone anywhere you want and yuo have usable tones fro anything. Use the eq on your amp to get the right sound, and the tone knob and volume control can "beef it up" on "thin it up" for a more fenderish of tones.this guitar has me covered, and i like to play anything, from heavy Black sabbath to nice fingerpicked classical stuff.

Action is great. I play mine wih 9-42's and they seem to compliment well with the body's resonance, and the tune-o-matic provides intonation and easy action adjustment. (unlike those godamned fender bridges! Ughhh!)I bought this thing used from a great friend of mine for 150, and he got it from some loser kid fro 50!Finish and necka are great, nice universal "not-too thick" and "not-too thin" shape. Kinda ugly cherry maroonish color, but I'm ok with that. I'm giving this an 8 simply because this is a used guitar, and kinda beat up, but i still love it.

This thing has seem more abuse in it's life than most Lp juniors should, or deserve. But, there aren't any breaks or cracks, and the neck joint is solid as a rock. This thing stands up to any kind of playing live or whatever.Finish is thick nitro finsih, which kinda tends to show fingerprints a lil bit more thatn i would expect. Strap buttons are ok, but the one neat the neck i replaced with a washer as a straplock and kept the one at the "bridge" orininal. Guys, don't spend 10 bucks on those godamned ugly eyesore straplock shits, just use a 30 cent washer, and screw it in tight, and you won't be losing you're strap soon.

Haven't dealt with gibson, it isn't under warranty, so i dunno. but i don't really care. I 'm just gonna keep playin it till the frets are worn down, get it refretted and play it some more.

Man, i've been playing about 3 years, and I've finally found my guitar. I 'm just gonna flip like wilson and keep it, and i'm sure it kick ass throught any amp(including my shitty solid-state ones)I just love the fact that this is a strait up no bullshit guitar like these muther fucking active elctronics and piezo things. Just keep it real!
If somebody stole this from me...well, lets pray that this never happens. I also have a gibson Sg special, which i really am fond of, and it sounds nice, but i mainly use that for blues and rock stuff, but the LP Junir does it all, and well!Don't getr caught up in this whole strat thing with 3 pickups make it more versatile. BULLSHIT! just get a LP junior and everytrhing will be ok.

Gibson Les Paul Junior 3/4 scale

What year was it made?
1957

Where was is made?
USA

How many frets?
19

Solid-Top? Laminated top?
Solid

Which controls are given
Tone& Volume

Pickup configuration?
1 P-90 pickup

Make and model of pickups?
P-90

Active or Passive electronics?
Passive

Body and neck woods?
Unknown

Finish
Original sunburst finish was stripped

Body style?
LP junior

Bridge style?
Wraparound stoptail

Tuners?
Original are removed and now there are Kluston deluxe fitted to it

Neck/Scale
Rosewood fingerboard

Any included accessories?
No

How does it suit your music style (and what is that style)?
Rock, pure tone heavey sound

What amps and effects are you using it with?
2Laney VC50 with ex cabs

Is it noisy?
Yes realy noisy!

On what settings?
This guitar has only one setting

Rich/Full sound? Bright sound?
Full bright sound

What kind of sounds can the guitar make?
Heavey bright rocksound

How much variety?
Not much variety, but steady!

Likes and dislikes?
I love this one

How well was the guitar set-up at the factory? (How was the action?)
Well, i didnt got it from the factory, bought it used

How well were the pickups adjusted?
Good

Properly bookmatched top?
No bookmayched top

Properly routed bridge?
Bridge is fine

Did the guitar contain any flaws? (misaligned bracing, poorly filed
fretwire, finish flaws, poor quality wood, rusted or oxidized hardware, loose tuning pegs, poorly cut nut, poorly fit saddle, noisy pickup selector, loose controls, etc...)

The moment i got this guitar it wasnt very good

Will this guitar withstand live playing?
Yes it will

Does the hardware seem like it will last?
Yes the guitar is almosth 50 year old and a good rocker

Is the finish good enough to last, or does it seem thin and easy to wear off with lots of playing?
The paint is stripped

Are the strap buttons solid?
Yes

Can you depend on it?
Yes

Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
No

If you've dealt with the company, how helpful/friendly were they?
No company deal.

Ever try and get it repaired?
I will get it restored later

Was it under warranty?
no

How long is the warranty?
-

How long have you been playing?
10 years

What other gear do you own?
-

Is there something you wish you had asked before buying this guitar?
no

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?
Yes, but there were only 777 made 50 years ago so i will never find one again

What do you love about it?
TONE!

What do you hate?
that the finish is stripped

What is your favorite feature?
a real rocker

Did you compare it to other guitars?
Yes with a full scals length junior

Which ones?
Full scale junior

Why did you choose this one?
Unique

Anything you wish it had?
his original finish and tuners

Anything else you'd like to share?
Nope!

my main guitar is a 1959 les paul junior,its refinished, has changed out tuners and bridge, therfore i got it pretty cheap (425.00 dollars}.it is a double cutaway with a very loud dog eared p-90 pick-up and volume and tone controls mohogony neck and body.it is refinished white,the exact same color of the later sg style juniors and a black pickgaurd. the paint job is really good and has probably been there 20+ years, it was "upgaded" to grover tuners which are pretty cool but iwould rather have the original in-line klusons. the badass bridge though, is much better than the original

i cant complain about the sound. it fits in any musical situation ive put it in. i play all kinds of music from jazz to metal to counrty, but i mainly use it for aerosmith guns n roses type of rock and its perfect. it has lots of midrange (too much sometimes)and the lack of a neck pickup is no problem, i just roll back the tone knob and you cant tell the difference

when i got it, it was set up pretty low and i havent had to change it.the frets have lots of life in them and the paint is good. the only gripe i have is that the 19th fret position marker had fallen out before i got it, so any time i bend anywhere near there it pinches the shit out of my finger! that sucks. i recently bought some inlay but havent gotten around to putting it in yet

this thing is solid and has saved my ass more than a few times. i use a lot of vintage guitars live (very often) and gigging with it is sometimes a gamble,but this one has never let me down. i usually take 2 or 3 giutars to shows and a few times ive ended up just playing the whole show with this one

ive never had to talk to gibson, obviously because its old, but im considering saving some cash and getting a factory refin to tv yellow, so we'll see later

i plan on keeping this one a while. today almost bought a 2002 junior that was pretty cool but it felt so cheesy and fragile compared to mine so i guess i lucked out on getting an old one. i love it

Early 1990's Re-Issue of the 70's LP Jr. Tune-o-matic bridge, single P-90, volume, tone. This is a double cutaway model in TV Yellow.

The sound is between a Fender and Les Paul with humbuckers. It screams! Cuts thru the mix, no mud, but plenty of grunt. Great with overdrive. I use it mostly with a Fender Hot Rod Deville, sounds amazing on the drive channels, also use with a Tube Screamer. Not crazy about using it with clean sound yet, but that's what I use Strat and Tele for. The Jr / P-90 sound is made for crunchy rythym and scorching leads. Reminds me of Stones "Can't You Haer Me Knocking" guitar sound, The Faces "Stay with Me". Not sure what they used, but this has that type of scratchy sound, it's not pretty!

Bought it used on eBay, body pretty dinged up. It needed a good scrubbing and new strings. Also changed the tuners from these horrible Sperzel locking tuners to Grovers. Major improvment. The G string is a bit tricky at times. I may change the nut, the G string creaks a bit, but not thru the amp. The TV yellow finish w/ black pickguard looks so good in pictures. Strap this on and look like a star. Tune-o-matic bridge is why I got this over an older model, I need to play chords in tune.

This guitar is made for live playing. I never gig with out a backup.
The wear makes the guitar look better imo.

Considering you can't buy one of these new anymore, it was a good deal. You can get a custom shop, but those don't have the tun-o-matic bridge and cost close to $2000. Nothing sounds quite like a P-90, it does not do everything, more like a one trick pony, but what a trick it is. Nothing sounds like this. Once you play one, you hear classic rock tunes and think "yep, that's a P-90/Jr." I think even new groups like Green Day, Jimmy Eat World and Foo Fighters use them. It covers so much ground. When I put this guitar on, I become a different player. It can't get the pretty and thin tones of a Tele or Strat, but it does what those guitars can't do.