The Gibson method - Wrap Under


The Les Plan - Wrap Over


Dump the Trapeze



Poser Pic for Wrappers -


Les Paul himself has said he told Gibson about the tailpiece design flaw when he saw the first production models. He explained that the strings were supposed to wrap *over* the bar, not under it, and that the neck angle should be steeper to accomodate this difference in action at the bridge. Apparently it took Gibson a whole year to figure out that maybe Les Paul actually knew what he was talking about! Because of the 1952 tailpiece problems and complaints, by early 1953 the "wrap around stop bar" tailpiece/bridge combo was adopted by Gibson on the Les Paul Goldtop. This rectified the playability problems (the strings wrap over the *top* of the tailpiece, allowing palm mutes). These models are quite nice (though many players still complained because the stop bar can not be intonated perfectly). The early 1953 wrap-around models still had a shallow neck angle, limiting the downward adjustment of the stop bar. But this had the added benefit of keeping the strings close to the pickups, making early 1953 models with wrap tails very loud guitars. But as 1954 approached, the neck angle increased allowing more downward adjustment of the wrap around tailpiece. Regardless the 1953 stop tail Les Paul Goldtops had better playing action, and the tuning was more stable since the stop bar was now anchored to the top of the guitar allowing no movement side-to-side.The previous problem of right-hand palm muting was solved, as was the tuning problems from tailpiece movement. Although this was a big improvement on the 1952 design, it still had its limitations in respect to intonation.

http://home.provide.net/~cfh/lpgold0.html
I read somewhere when Gibson went to the TOM, the first guitars to leave were top wrapped because that is how it had been being done, but it was quickly changed because it was easier to string thru and the system fully adjustable.