I'm interested. I thought the color was to act as a substitute for white guitars that didn't transmit well on black and white television sets. It started on the LP Jr.'s I think.
Is there more to the story than that? I'm considering this color for a custom build. LP style bass with a single Thunderbird type pickup.
Uwe does this periodically just to get me riled up. It's amazing how much traction this story has had on guitar forums over the years.
The substitute-for-white story is 100% false. Never happened, not with these guitars or anything else on black-and-white TV.
Tom Wheeler's story that it was because of Les Paul's TV show is also false. For one thing, Les Paul didn't have a TV show, he only had his 5-minute Listerine commercial performances and his contract with Listerine ended by the time the first TV Model hit the stores in 1955.
The truth is that the TV Model was so named because console TVs with limed finish cabinets were extremely hot sellers in the 50s -- especially limed oak. The original TV Model's catalog listing specifically called it a limed oak finish, even though it was mahogany. By 1958 the description was changed to limed mahogany.
You probably already know this, but the finish was never called TV Yellow. The guitar itself was called the TV Model, and when the Special version came out in 1956 it was called the TV Special (also with the finish described as limed oak).
