The SG model name inexplicably debuted on what had been the Les Paul Special in late 1959, over a year before it received the SG body and more than three years before Les Paul’s contract with Gibson ended.

Otherwise, though, Gibson maintained it’s identifying features – two single-coil pickups and bound fingerboard with dot inlays – through the changeover. The “TV” finish of the 1950s gave way to a more opaque cream or white finish, or else a cherry stain finish, and in rare cases such as this 1966 example, a Pelham Blue finish (aged to a dark green).

As it had in the 1950s, the Special occupied an awkward spot between the cheaper single-pickup Junior and the humbucker-equipped Standard. It gained it’s moment in the spotlight in the late 1960s when Carlos Santana appeared onstage at Woodstock with an SG Special and Pete Townshend of The Who made it his main guitar.

Various versions (typically with humbucking pickups) have been in production since 1985, and Gibson replicated Townshend’s guitar in a limited edition in 2000.