When Ted McCarty joined Gibson as CEO in 1948, he immediately set about turning the post-war operation around financially, before pursuing the development of new and exciting electric guitar designs as company President.
Released in 1949, the single pickup ES-175 is the predecessor of the dual P-90 ES-295 and one of the earliest McCarty ‘golden era’ models.
Essentially an electrified laminate-body version of the carved spruce top L-4C acoustic model, the mid-priced $175 ES-175 set the template for the $295 ES-295 electric archtop released a few years later in 1952.
Aside from rare exceptions such as the red 1955 example pictured above, the ES-295 is easily distinguished by its all-gold finish (‘all-gold’ aside from headstock face and fingerboard) and clear/cream back-painted pickguard embossed with a gold Gibson Century lap steel-style floral design.
The ES-295 is easily distinguished by its all-gold finish
The ES-295 does, however, have much in common with the ES-175. Sporting unbound f-holes along with a triple-bound top and single-bound back, both the ES-175 and ES-295 measure 16 1/4-inches wide by 3 3/8-inches deep and feature a laminated maple body construction with a sharp Florentine cutaway.
With an unbound headstock featuring mother-of-pearl Gibson logo and crown motif inlays, both models’ single piece mahogany necks have a 24 3/4-inches scale length and join the body at the 14th fret.
In 1955, the ES-295 changed in tandem with the ES-175 from a 19-fret to a 20-fret design; otherwise the instruments’ Brazilian rosewood fingerboards retained the same single-bound, double-parallelogram mother-of-pearl inlay design throughout their production.
The inspiration for the ES-295 was born from an all-gold finish ES-175 which was custom-ordered by Les Paul and completed in late-1951, before being presented to a disabled guitarist.
In turn, the ES-295 set the mold for the perennially popular dual pickup version of the ES-175, the ES-175D, released in 1953 (although it wasn’t unheard of for people to custom-order dual pickup ES-175s prior to this).
Les Paul, it seems, expressed a strong preference for gold finishes over Gibson’s traditional sunburst, and with the ES-295 joining Gibson’s line-up in 1952 alongside the Les Paul ‘Goldtop’ Model, the golden era appeared to be truly underway.
With its gold finish, cream-colored P-90s, independent pickup controls, Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic keystone buttons, and combination trapeze tailpiece/bridge, the ES-295 is something of an electric hollowbody equivalent of the ’52 Les Paul Model solidbody.
Indeed, Gibson ambitiously sought to market the ES-295 as such: “This golden beauty is truly a ‘royal’ instrument,” reads a Gibson catalogue. “Tone and action wise, the Gibson ES-295 measures up to its outstanding appearance; this instrument meets the demand for the slick action and sustaining power of a solid body electric in a regular-size acoustic guitar.”
The ES-295 changed very little during its run in Kalamazoo during the '50s.
Despite sales more than doubling in its second year of production, shipping numbers indicate a steady decline in popularity until it was finally discontinued in 1958.
Even Scotty Moore and a set of PAF humbuckers introduced in late ’57 couldn’t save it!
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