Epiphone Acoustic Guitars

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Best Match Time: ending soonest Time: newly listed Price: lowest first Price: highest first Price + Shipping: lowest first Price + Shipping: highest first

Line 6 JTV 59 Variax Electric Guitar NEW IN BOX    US $1,499.99

PEERLESS SUNSET Archtop Hollowbody Electrtic Guitar    US $895.00

Ovation Balladeer 2771AX Guitar Natural Demo w preamp    US $899.09

Ovation Balladeer 2771AX Guitar Black Demo w preamp    US $949.09

Ovation Balladeer 2771AX Guitar Cherry Demo w preamp    US $749.09

PEERLESS Tonemaster JH Special Electric Hollowbody  P90    US $1,095.00

PEERLESS Tonemaster   Electric Hollowbody w Bigsby    US $1,195.00

Epiphone Ultra III Electric Guitar Brand New Lists $124800    US $749.00

LINE 6 JTV 59 VARIAX CHERRY SUNBURST ELECTRIC GUITAR    US $1,499.99

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Offered for sale is a vintage stock original Epiphone Acoustic Guitar from the 1950's, which features the company's design hallmarks and top notch craftmanship, and is a true collector's item worthy to display just as much as to play (see bio info below).  The guitar is in used but well preserved condition considering it's vintage (minor wear / ding to an edge piece; can easily be repaired or restored; some surface marks from playing), measures 39" in length, and has a starting bid price of only $299.99, so don't miss your chance for this unique auction offering!  Overseas bidders please add for additional S/H costs, and CA State Residents please add 9% sales tax.  Thanks for visiting my auction listing, and feel free to contact me with further questions or comments!

Epiphone

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Logo of Epiphone

Epiphone Emperor

The Epiphone Company is a musical instrument manufacturer founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos. Epiphone was bought by Chicago Music Company, who also owned Gibson Guitar Corporation, in 1957. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market. Their professional archtops, including the Emperor, Deluxe, Broadway and Triumph, rivaled (and some contend surpassed) those of Gibson. Aside from their guitars, Epiphone also made upright basses, banjos, and other stringed instruments. However, the company's weakness in the aftermath of World War II allowed Gibson to absorb it.?

The name "Epiphone" is a combination of proprietor Epaminondas Stathopoulos' nickname "Epi" and "phone" (from Greek phon-, "sound"/"voice"), as well as a play on one meaning of the word "epiphany," namely a sudden inspiration frequently presenting itself as supernatural in origin.[1]

Contents[hide]

• 1 History


• 2 Casino


• 3 1970-present
  
  
  
  • 3.1 Imperial Series and Elitist


• 4 Current status


• 5 Current products
  
  
  
  • 5.1 Amplifiers
  
  
  • 5.2 Guitars
    
    
    
    • 5.2.1 Gibson copies
    
    
    • 5.2.2 Dedicated Epiphone models


• 6 Discontinued Models


• 7 Players Of Epiphone


• 8 References


• 9 External links

[edit] History

1945 Epiphone Blackstone archtop guitar, made in New York

The history of Epiphone started in 1873, in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now ?zmir, Turkey), where Greek founder Anastasios Stathopoulos made his own fiddles and lutes (oud, laouto). Stathopoulos moved to the United States of America in 1903, and continued to make his original instruments, as well as mandolins, from Long Island City in Queens, New York. Anastasios died in 1915, and his son, Epaminondas, took over. After two years, the company was known as The House Of Stathopoulos. Just after the end of World War I, the company started to make banjos. The company produced its Recording Line of Banjos in 1924, and, four years later, took on the name of the "Epiphone Banjo Company". They produced their first guitars in 1928. Epi Stathopoulos died in 1943. Control of the company went to his brothers, Orphie and Frixo. Unfortunately, they were not as capable owners as Epi. In 1951, a four month long strike forced a relocation of Epiphone from New York to Philadelphia. The company was bought out by their main rival, Gibson in 1957. In the famous "Dueling Banjos" scene in the 1972 motion picture Deliverance, actor Ronny Cox plays an Epiphone acoustic guitar.

[edit] Casino
Main article: Epiphone Casino

The most famous Epiphone model introduced by Gibson after taking over was the Casino. The Casino was made in the same shape and configuration as a Gibson ES-330 guitar. It has a very heavy sound and is a very good rhythm guitar due to its fairly thick sound when strummed. It is a genuine hollow body electric guitar with single coil P90 pickups.

Epiphone Casino VT

The Casino is famous for being used by The Beatles. Paul McCartney was the first to acquire one and John Lennon and George Harrison followed suit soon after. Paul McCartney used his for the solo in Taxman and the Casino sound is very prevalent throughout Revolver and their later albums. John Lennon made his Casino one of his main guitars and used it for the rest of his time with the Beatles and into the 70s. Paul still uses his Casino, which has a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, in concert and studio today.

[edit] 1970-present

In the early 1970s, Epiphone began to manufacture instruments in Japan. From the 1980s, Epiphones were manufactured mainly in Korea but also in Japan by contractors licensed by Gibson. One of these contractors was Samick, which also built instruments under license for other brands and in its own name. Thus, a Korean-era solidbody Epiphone would have been built under license. The brand was primarily used to issue less expensive versions of classic Gibson models, in a manner similar to that of the Squier brand by Fender. These Epiphones were thought to have sometimes been built with different species of woods from the original Gibson versions; some players speculated that this resulted in the instruments bearing a visual and ergonomic similarity to the Gibson originals but having a slightly different tone; however this has always been suspected to be based on prejudice more than empirical fact. Samick has stopped manufacturing guitars in Korea. In 2002, Gibson opened a factory in Qingdao, China, which manufactures Epiphone guitars exclusively. With few exceptions, Epiphones are now built only in the Qingdao factory.

Unique Epiphone models, including the Emperor, Zephyr, Riviera and Sheraton, are built to higher quality standards than the company's "Gibson copy" line. Epiphone also produces a range of higher quality instruments under the "Elitist Series" moniker, which are built in Japan. The "Masterbilt" acoustics are manufactured in Qingdao.

According to several forum entries, current Epiphone serial numbers give the following information:

Korea

• I = Saein


• U = Unsung


• S = Samick


• P or R = Peerless


• K = Korea

China

• DW = DeaWon


• EA = Gibson/QingDao


• EE = Gibson/QingDao


• MC = Muse


• SJ = SaeJung


• Z = Zaozhuang Saehan


• BW = China

Japan

• No letter or F = FujiGen


• J or T = Terada

Czech Republic

• B = Bohêmia Musico-Delicia

Indonesia

• SI = Samick Indonesia


• LU = paLsU (fake)

Example: SI09034853 SI = Samick Indonesia, 09 = 2009, 03 = March, 4853 = manufacturing number.

Several Epiphone guitars have been produced in the United States since 1971. The Epiphone Spirit and Special were produced in the early 1980s in Kalamazoo. In 1993, three historic Epiphone acoustic guitars, the Texan, Frontier, and Excellente, were produced by Gibson Acoustic in Montana. The Paul McCartney Texan was produced in 2005, and in 2009, the Epiphone Historic Collection was created, beginning with the 1962 Wilshire, built by Gibson Custom. Several other models, such as the Sheraton and John Lennon Casinos, were built in Japan and assembled and finished by Gibson USA.

[edit] Imperial Series and Elitist

During the mid 1990s Epiphone released a series called the Imperial Series. These were remakes of the classic Epiphone archtops of the 1930's and 40's. Each instrument was hand made in the Fujigen Workshop in Japan. This short lived series was discontinued in 1993, after only 42 Emperor's were made. Several other models, including De Luxe, Broadway and Triumph models, were also produced in varying quantities. When the Japanese Yen gained strength against the USD and Japanese production became cost-prohibitive, production was moved, somewhat unusually, back to Nashville and Bozeman for a similar limited run of instruments (250 each of Emperors, Sheratons, Rivieras and Texans) These guitars were the "Centennial Series" in honor of one hundred years of Gibson, and were the last significant number of American made Epiphone guitars[1]. Epiphone later released a series of guitars called the Elitist series (originally called Elite but changed to avoid confusion with Ovation's Elite model). These were made to very high specifications in Japan but some parts are made in other countries, including the USA and Germany. These guitars cost more than twice as much as Standard Epiphone guitars. Standard Epiphone and Gibson guitars have an open-book headstock, but Elitist models have a more curved style dating back to the Epiphone Masterbilt series of guitars. The Elitist series was discontinued in 2008, with the exception of the Casino model.

[edit] Current status

Epiphone is now a subsidiary of Gibson, somewhat like Squier is a subsidiary of Fender (the chief difference being that the Squier line of guitars was created in-house by Fender; in other words, there is no such thing as a "pre-Fender" Squier guitar). Because of this subsidiary relationship, many of the instruments look the same as the more expensive Gibson versions. However Epiphone still maintains its own line of archtop guitars.

Epiphone also manufactures its own line of amplifiers.

[edit] Current products
Main article: List of Epiphone products
[edit] Amplifiers

Gibson produced Epiphone amplifiers in the 1960s which were basically copies or variations of Gibson and Fender amplifiers. These amplifiers were of a tube design and some had reverb and tremolo. Gibson decided to launch a new line of Epiphone amplifiers in 2005 with many different models including the "So Cal", "Blues Custom" and the Epiphone Valve Junior. The Valve Hot Rod and Valve Senior were released in 2009. The Valve Hot Rod is a 5w amp just like the Valve Junior, but has a gain and reverb control. The Valve Senior offers 20w of power, with a full eq, gain, volume, reverb, and presence control.

[edit] Guitars

The following guitars are currently made by Epiphone:

[edit] Gibson copies

An Epiphone Les Paul.

• The Explorer


• Several Versions of the SG guitar Including G400, G310, SG Special and SG Custom.


• Around 20 Versions of the Epiphone Les Paul


• The Flying-V


• The Firebird


• The Thunderbird


• The Blackbird


• The ES-175


• Gibson ES-295


• The EDS-1275 Dual-neck


• The Hummingbird


• Gibson J-200


• The LP-100


• Epiphone Tom DeLonge ES-333

[edit] Dedicated Epiphone models

• Several versions of the Sheraton


• Several versions of the Casino


• Several versions of the Epiphone Texan


• The Dot


• The Riviera in 6- and 12-string versions


• The Broadway


• The Emperor Regent


• Several versions of the Zephyr:
  
  
  
  • Zephyr Blues Deluxe
  
  
  • Zephyr Regent


• The Supernova


• The Wildkat


• The EM-2


• The Thunderbird IV Bass


• The Wilshire


• The Alleykat


• Nick Valensi Riviera P-94


• The Viola Bass


• Jack Casady Bass


• The Coronet


• Epiphone Wilshire


• Graveyard Disciple


• The Prophecy Series


• The Zenith Bass

In recent years Epiphone introduced a series of acoustic guitars named Masterbilt after a line of guitars of the 1930s. Today's Masterbilt guitars are manufactured in China.

[edit] Discontinued Models

• Epiphone Demon


• Epiphone Genesis


• Epiphone Slasher


• Epiphone Supernova


• Gibson/Epiphone Spirit


• Epiphone Crestwood


• Epiphone Coronet


• Epiphone Olympic


• Epiphone Pro


• Epiphone Fat-210


• Epiphone Fat-310


• Epiphone T-310


• Epiphone Rivoli bass


• Epiphone Sorrento


• Epiphone Scroll (three models)


• Epiphone Evolution


• Epiphone 1939 Emperor Reissue


• Epiphone EM-1


• Epiphone Flamekat


• Epiphone ES-295


• Epiphone Zephyr Regent


• Epiphone El Segundo Bass


• Epiphone Embassy Special IV Bass


• Epiphone Embassy Standard IV Bass


• Epiphone Embassy Standard V Bass


• Epiphone Biscuit


• Epiphone MD-100


• Epiphone 1962 Wilshire Reissue (Limited production run to 100 copies)


• Epiphone Paul McCartney 1964 Texan


• Epiphone Les Paul Custom Plus


• Epiphone Les Paul Studio Chameleon


• Epiphone Les Paul '56 Gold Top Reissue


• Epiphone AJ-500RC 12 Fret


• Epiphone EN-546CE


• Epiphone MB-500


• Epiphone Mahogany Ukulele


• Epiphone Nighthawk


• Epiphone Les Paul Junior '57 reissue


• Epiphone Acoustic