Why The Name "Standard"?

[NMA]

I am not a Gibson guy. My SG is the only Gibson I own. It is a....wait for it....Standard.

That name bothers me. Why did Gibson go for such an ordinary name for such an extraordinary guitar? A standard. A White Falcon by its name alone must cost four thousand bucks, but a Standard? Why would we pay more than two hundred bucks for a guitar called standard? A Jazzmaster or a Jaguar or a Mustang sounds like cool guitars. But a Standard?

I do notice that Gibson guitar names are rather rotten. Standard, Special, Junior.... I wish my Standard SG (see, doesn't that sound like I own a budget guitar?) had a better name. I'd have called it the SG Supersonic. Or the SG Professional. Standard? My SG is anything but standard.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

Well, in some connotations, I suppose Standard has a certain above " average" meaning. As in the GOLD Standard. In other words, it is by which all others are measured.

Could this be it?

 

[Dale]

Pretty guitar!

Well, it was advertising as it is the "Standard of Excellence." I think that was the plan at the time it started. The "standard to which all else is compared." It has been shortened over time.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

NMA's is one of my favorite SG Standards of any I have seen online.

 

[papagayo]

Because.

 

[NMA]

NMA's is one of my favorite SG Standards of any I have seen online.

Thanks...but it's still just only a standard.

Should have been called an SG Professional. Gibson should have done it this way:
Standard -- Professional -- Custom

 

[cerebral gasket]

SG Pro...

https://solidguitar.fandom.com/wiki/SG_Pro

 

[Go Nigel Go]

In the auto industry, standard used to mean a manual gear box which came on the base model of a given car, the automatic transmission was a special order which arrived at an extra cost on a deluxe model. Now the automatic transmission is typically "standard" equipment on the base model, and the manual gearbox is still commonly referred to often as a "standard transmission", but arrives as an option available only at a premium... Go figure. In my experience looking for logic in the marketing department is a mistake. Even if the new (arguably more logical) naming convention were adopted, I have no idea how one would make it work retroactively, so the problems would still remain but the confusion would only be increased as the model year breakpoints would become even more byzantine than they are now. Just get what you like regardless of what it is called and let the marketing guys do their own thing. They re going to anyway.

 

[cerebral gasket]

Today, a manual gearbox is an anti-theft device.

 

[Bob Womack]

Here's the story I've been told: Gibson created the Les Paul guitar back in the '50s. From day one until the model was discontinued in 1960, there were changes to the specifications every year. In the mid-1960, when these 1950s guitars started to sell for far above their original prices and there was an outcry from their customers (and, according to Les Paul, he called the president of Gibson), Gibson decided to reissue the model. They chose a configuration, a gold top guitar with P-90 pickups, and offered it. They sold okay but people cried, "No! Give us a Les Paul with humbucking pickups!" Gibson had a bunch of mini humbuckers left over from their acquisition of Epiphone so they put them in the guitars. Seeing how the humbuckers were from Epi's top of the line instruments and that they were responding to special requests, they called the instrument the "Deluxe" Les Paul. Once again, people bought the instruments, but they still cried out for a Les Paul with specs closer to the 1957-1961 run. They said, "No! Just give us a Standard Les Paul with full-sized pickups." Beginning in 1973, dealers could special-order these guitars, factory equipped with Gibson Patent Number "T-Top" pickups. They came with a trussrod cover emblazoned with a small-script legend, "Standard." As I understand it, that was the first use of that legend. I happen to own a 1974 example. My forty years of research into this really obscure little run of 2218 guitars has revealed the little tidbit about "Standard."

Note that the "Standard" they were attempting to reproduce was the group of Les Pauls that now carry the highest prices in the world and are retroactively called Les Paul "Standards." It is acknowledged by most that the Standards created in the '70s were far different from the guitars of the '50s.

However, the named LP Standard model didn't appear in the Gibson catalog until 1976 when the model was made official and production of the line was launched in the new plant in Nashville. They introduced several changes to the guitar including maple necks and trussrod cover with a larger script.

For a while the term "Standard" in the Gibson line came to indicate that the guitar conforms to a period when the instrument was considered particularly desirable. However, with the burgeoning of lines at Gibson, that designation has changed to whatever-the-heck Gibson wants it to mean. Your guitar represents the Standard from somewhere around 1966 with the "batwing" pickguard. I own a 2016 "Gibson SG Standard '61 Reissue Limited Edition" with nickel hardware, a small pickguard, and absolutely nothing on the trussrod cover that represents the standard 1961 instrument. I also own a 2018 LP Standard that contains many innovations that make it quite different from its older brethren, but up there on the trussrod is the larger-script legend we've heard of before. Hilarious.

So you see, what was once a term to designate the "Standard of the industry" has faded into obscurity. It might be noted that the term "Standard" has never been attached to an entry level instrument. Perhaps it might be better to think of if it as Gibson's version of the now-defunct Fender "American Standard" line. That line is the line of guitars that corresponds to the concept, "You can take this one on the road. It is a serious guitar."

Does that help any?

Bob

 

[NMA]

Does that help any?
Bob

Good post.

Interesting how the term Standard entered the Gibson line of guitars. "We don't want the P-90s. Give us what we previously had. Give us a standard Les Paul with humbuckers!"

Now I'm not sure the Standard SG was a harkening back to previous models, but it was interesting to see how the term came to be used by Gibson.

 

[skelt101]

That's quite a story. However, the sunburst Les Paul Model became officially known as the "Standard" in the 1960 catalog.

The SG-shaped Les Paul guitars (and consequently later SG guitars) simply continued with the naming system that was already in place. Am I missing something here?

 

[arcticsg]

I don’t know, but some of my favorite guitars series are Standards.

Gibson SG Standard:

Fender American Standard:

Martin Standard Series:

....and all 5 of my vehicles are Standard shift.

 

[SG standard]

That's quite a story. However, the sunburst Les Paul Model became officially known as the "Standard" in the 1960 catalog.

The SG-shaped Les Paul guitars (and consequently later SG guitars) simply continued with the naming system that was already in place. Am I missing something here?

I've always heard the 'Standard' name was adopted after the humbucker equipped sunbursts appeared, simply to help differentiate the Les Paul models: The 'Goldtops' had simply been called the Les Paul Model, so this new model needed something to distinguish it. And yes, I'd say the intention was to set a standard for others to follow, (rather than imply a minimum standard), with the Custom claiming the high status position. Musicians of the day were probably happy with that name - and many still are. :) Personally I wish Fender would go back to making Standard Stratocasters; 'Player' and 'Professional' are just dumb names to me.

OT aside: There are two widely used English expressions in the UK (not sure about the US), 'Bog Standard' meaning ordinary, run of the mill, and 'the Dog's Bollocks' meaning outstanding, exceptional - so an SG Special might be called a 'bog standard' SG, and a Custom might be called 'the dog's bollocks', for example.

It's claimed that this originates in the packaging of Meccano sets where stores could order a 'Box - Standard' or a 'Box - Deluxe' - and from that I'm sure anyone can work out the derivations, as they follow classic patterns. No idea if it's true, but I sort of hope it is.

 

[Hudman]

I have a 2020 SG ‘61 Standard and a 2019 Les Paul Standard. The next step up is Custom.

 

[Go Nigel Go]

I'm going to start calling all of my favorite guitars "Dog's Bollocks Grade"!

 

[Bob Womack]

That's quite a story. However, the sunburst Les Paul Model became officially known as the "Standard" in the 1960 catalog.

The SG-shaped Les Paul guitars (and consequently later SG guitars) simply continued with the naming system that was already in place. Am I missing something here?

I understand, I misspoke. But look at the trussrod cover: There's no model name there. It is blank. Also, if you look at the '74 catalog there is no Standard model at all, only Deluxe and Custom. Nevertheless, they had shipped with the Standard legend since 1973.

All the best,

Bob

 

[papagayo]

Non standard Gibson SG Standard

 

[Flaps]

I don't mind 'standard' but think the choice of 'junior' is daft. It implies 3/4.

 

[otisblove]

Wait until he finds out what SG stands for.