Les Paul registered his ‘Combined Bridge And Tail Piece For Stringed Instruments’ in 1952 and was awarded the patent number 2737842 in 1956. Having tried both bridges on the same ES-225, we can report that the original bridge sounds louder and fuller, and has greater sustain. The trapeze bridge lasted until the ES-225’s final year of production in 1959, when Gibson changed to an ES-330-style trapeze with a ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge mounted on a floating rosewood base. Having tried both bridges on the same ES-225, we can report that the original bridge sounds louder and fuller, and has greater sustain But on an ES-225 the bridge is top-wrapped, so it produces great tone and there’s sufficient downwards pressure to prevent the bridge from sliding about. The shallow neck angle on the earliest Goldtops meant that the strings had to be wrapped under the bridge, and this renders them uncomfortable to play and tricky to palm-mute. As such, their reputation is tainted by association, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the bridge itself when it’s used as intended by its designer, Lester William Polsfuss. The ES-225’s trapeze tailpiece/bridge unit is an elongated version of the bridge that was fitted to Les Paul Goldtops in 1952 and early 1953.
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