Les Paul's impact on the history of the electric guitar cannot be underestimated. An early advocate for electrified amplification, his home-made "log" guitar, combining the body of an archtop with a central solid wooden section, solved the problem of feedback that plagued early hollow-bodied electric guitars. Gibson's Les Paul model, introduced in 1952, is one of the great classic designs that remains in production to this day.

The solid-body Les Paul guitar, made from mahogany with a maple veneer, originally came in a gold metallic finish on the top with a clear lacquer on the back or, more rarely, with an all-gold finish, as on NMM 5916. The 1952 instruments feature a modified version of the trapeze tailpiece-bridge combination that Les Paul (Lester Polfuss) patented in 1952. However, disputes with Gibson resulted in the strings being wrapped under the upper tailpiece bar rather than over the upper side, as Les Paul intended. This caused the strings to be difficult to damp with the player's hand, so it was replaced in 1954 with a top-mounted bridge and string holder.