One of the fun things about working at Carter Vintage is the fact that you never know what’s going to come through the front door. Case in point, a 1954 Gibson Les Paul Standard showed up the other day. The guitar’s in stunning original condition. What’s the big deal though? This guitar has a factory painted black top instead of the usual gold paint on the top. And that is a huge deal.
It’s rare to see a “Custom Color” anything, be it Gibson or Fender, in 1950’s guitar world. Why is that? Well, a number of factors come into play. For starters, it was a very conservative time. Seems like everyone was quite invested in, “Fitting in.” There’s been many books written on that subject so I won’t go into it here today. Safe to say, the order of the day was, “Don’t make waves, don’t be different, and definitely try to fit in.”
The 1950s was also a wonderful age of American consumerism. Jobs were plentiful after the war, housing was cheap and there was a mass migration of people to a new place in America, the suburbs. Americans bought homes, cars, and all sorts of things to fill their new suburban houses. We bought them in droves, by the bushel. It was an era of discretionary spending gone wild. We bought washing machines, refrigerators, clothes, shoes, jewelry, record players, musical instruments, and records. We bought televisions, clock radios, and vacuum cleaners. We basically bought everything we could afford. With the advent of cheap credit, we also bought a lot of stuff we couldn’t afford.
This era also gave rise to a new American consumer force… the teenager. Teenagers led the discretionary spending spree. Some of their favorite purchases were clothes, records, record players, and radios. More affluent parents even bought their kids cars. But the number one thing that teenagers purchased, back in the day, was music in the form of records. Why? Rock ‘n’ Roll. Rock and Roll had been invented and it was driving the kids wild with the new sounds. Eventually some of these kids watched their idols, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly and a whole host of other acts on their new television sets at home. Some lucky kids went to rock and roll shows to see the music performed live. It made a profound impression on some of them and they set about to emulate their new heros. Musical instrument sales boomed in the 50s.
Circling back to the 1950’s as being an age of conformity and people “Fitting in.” There’s the classic story of Elvis going to Humes High in Memphis one day wearing an outfit like this: black shirt with pink trim, peg leg jeans and some cool shoes called “Brothel Creepers.” His hair full of pomade and swept back into a big pompadour. Kids made fun of him because he was different. He didn’t fit in. Elvis didn’t want to fit in. He had to be himself and express himself exactly the way he wanted to do it. His clothes choices were informed by shopping at places like Lansky’s on Beale Street. Lansky’s was a store that catered to the black population in Memphis and Elvis was totally on board with that style.
Elvis was an outlier, he didn’t represent the rank-and-file teenager of the day. Guys wore jeans and print shirts, or t-shirts back in that time. It was like a uniform almost. It was important to fit in during that era.
Guitar manufacturers helped to add to the conformity of the era by offering their wares only in standard finishes, for each particular model. Let’s take Gibson Les Paul’s, from 1954, a case in point.
In 1954 you could buy a new Les Paul in one of two variations: The Standard model and the Custom. The Les Paul Standard featured a gold painted top, P-90 pickups, along with natural finished back and sides. The more ornate, and luxurious, Custom featured a totally black finish, more ornate trim than the Standard, different pickups and, in a bizarre turn, a fretboard that offered very little in the way of frets. Another nickname for the Custom, that Gibson was oddly proud of and featured in their 1950’s advertising called the guitar, “The Fretless Wonder!”
In the ‘50’s Gibson didn’t offer a clear path to getting a guitar in anything other than the standard finish for the model. In other words, if you wanted a Les Paul you almost had to get it in the finish that correlated with the model. At the time Gibson literature didn’t mention a custom color finish option for their guitars. Fender did mention custom color finish options in their 50’s literature but almost nobody took them up on it. It was an age of conformity and nobody dared to stand out.
Which brings us to the subject of today’s guitar. How did this 1954 Les Paul Standard end up being black? In 1954 a young man was about to graduate high school in Texas. His mom said she’d buy him a guitar and asked him what kind of guitar he wanted? He wanted a Les Paul Standard, but not a gold one. They asked their Gibson dealer in town if something other than a gold Standard was possible? The dealer called Gibson and was told that they could finish the guitar in either black, or red, along with the standard gold color. Black was selected and a very rare guitar was born.
Looking at the guitar today is a reminder of those conservative times. Since seriously getting into guitars, starting in the mid ‘70’s, I’ve only seen two original custom color Les Pauls. This ’54 currently at the store and a humbucker powered Standard, in factory black finish, owned by Joe Bonamassa. That’s just about it for custom finished Gibsons, that I’ve seen, from the 1950’s. They are incredibly rare guitars.
If you’re in town please come on down to the store to see this instrument. Due to it’s rarity it’ll be in a glass case but you’ll still be able to see one of the rarest Gibson guitar on earth. If you’re into vintage guitars, this thing’s a must see! A total Unicorn!
Click here to see the Factory Black ’54 Les Paul Standard listing.
Gary Bohannon is Senior Authenticator and Acquisitions for Carter Vintage. If you have a vintage instrument you’d like to sell through CVG, reach out to info@cartervintage.com
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