This unearthed 1960 prototype reveals what the Gibson SG Special nearly looked like

This 1960 SG Special prototype, currently in the possession of New York’s Well Strung Guitars, is notable for having a slab body without the SG’s familiar edge bevel.

Without its familiar edge-bevels this prototype SG Special has a more blocky look that was rejected in favour of continuity with the rest of the Gibson SG range – though the classic P-90 pickup configuration stayed.

“When I first took it out of the case it was like when you haven’t seen a friend in a while and there’s something different about them, like maybe they shaved their beard,” Well Strung’s David Davidson says.

“It’s a ’60 serial number, inked on. I always look at that guitar as kind of like the slab-body Fender Mustangs you saw early on. It was as if the people making the prototype were thinking ‘Well, if we can make it cheaper, let’s try’, before the styling department said, ‘No, you can’t cut that corner.’”

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David adds that he’s never seen any SG Standard prototypes without bevelled edges so, possibly, a simpler un-bevelled version was only considered for the cheaper SG Special in much the same way as the Les Paul Special did without the carved top of the LP Standard.