The Gibson ES-295 debuted in 1952.

Gibson called it a “golden beauty”, a “royal instrument”, and asserted that “tone and action wise the ES-295 measures up to it’s outstanding appearance”.

Visually, the elegant new archtop matched Gibson’s Les Paul solid-body. But it bore a close resemblance to the ES-175, with the same overall dimensions, “Florentine” cutaways, and “parallelogram” fret markers. It also has a “flower” decoration on the pickguard.

The ES-295 never became a bestseller, and was dropped in 1958.