catfishstudios Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Glad to see a forum for Epi! New here and will introduce myself, my gear, and lay a question on you guys..Live in the great Pacific Northwest ....play blues, jazz, rock, jam, reggae, bluegrass...ah nevermind..lets just say I play many instruments and styles. Got a 06 MIA standard Tele, a 90 reissue Japanese Strat, 07 Gibson Les Paul studio,Epiphone spotlight? PRS copy..v inlays in neck with emg's very nice carved top and neck through...awsome axe.. 06 MIA Jazz Bass HWy1, Seagull s6 ..59' ri custom shop tweed bassman reliced...ac15...ima quite as the list of effects and other instruments I own could go on for a while...Id like to say that out of all of them, my Epiphone Emperor is among the top..here is where my question comes in. My Emperor is Pre-Joe Pass, and stamped "SEC" on the back, I assume factory second..there is some black specks, rather small, under the finish of the lower bout. Cant find ANY other problem on her...no sticker inside...WHAT YEAR IS SHE? I cant find info on what year, I assume pre-91 when Joe Pass endorsed and all that...The pickup selecter switch is on the lower bout unlike Emperor II's ..truss cover says Gibson.here is some small pics... nevermind,i cant seem to post a link or pick.... and my Gibby and here is my other Epi...Spotlight 1988 I think..PRS copy, I think they were sued and had to cease production. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V-Type Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Welcome too a Very cool Epiphone forum. You certainly have some nice gear. Pic's are always welcomed as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catfishstudios Posted February 28, 2008 Author Share Posted February 28, 2008 Just got them workin...this forum wont let me paste? so I had to type out all the adresses of these on imageshack..takes too long! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gothsloth Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Hi catfishstudios and welcome to the coolest guitar forum. You'll find the members here to to very helpfull, have a sense of humour and love their guitars and music. Try this link to get your guitar info. Hope it helps. To paste pics here a lot of us use photobucket and simply copy and paste the IMG url below the pic you wish to publish here. http://www.guitardaterproject.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidg3333 Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 I think that since this is stamped as a second, there is no serial number as it may have been rubbed out. There might be nothing to use on the guitardaterproject web site. If that is so it is going to be hard to figure out what year she was made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gothsloth Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 I think that since this is stamped as a second' date=' there is no serial number as it may have been rubbed out. There might be nothing to use on the guitardaterproject web site. If that is so it is going to be hard to figure out what year she was made.[/quote'] oopps....I think you're right david. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catfishstudios Posted February 28, 2008 Author Share Posted February 28, 2008 Ive deduced from lack of Joe Pass sig, and switch on lower bout..its pre 91 ....the binding is quite yellowed, and there is fretwear although not too bad..somebody played her for a while for sure..I guess ill have to pull a pot out and date it...any good places to look at pot codes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexygibson Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 welcome Catfish. Nice axes ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gothsloth Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Ive deduced from lack of Joe Pass sig' date=' and switch on lower bout..its pre 91 ....the binding is quite yellowed, and there is fretwear although not too bad..somebody played her for a while for sure..I guess ill have to pull a pot out and date it...any good places to look at pot codes?[/quote'] If you go to the guitardater project site the is a pot info link there as well. It's up the top right corner of the page. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matiac Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Speaking of Joe Pass, whatever happened to Joe Pass Wannabe anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amino Moore Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Speaking of Joe Pass' date=' whatever happened to Joe Pass Wannabe anyway?[/quote'] JPW is still around although I haven't seen him post here for awhile. Maybe he bought a Gibby and is hanging out with Ted Van Frehley now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic Flick Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 My Emperor is Pre-Joe Pass' date=' and stamped "SEC" on the back, I assume factory second..there is some black specks, rather small, under the finish of the lower bout. Cant find ANY other problem on her...no sticker inside...WHAT YEAR IS SHE? I cant find info on what year, I assume pre-91 when Joe Pass endorsed and all that...[/quote'] That's an early Emperor II approximately late '80s - early '90s made by Samick in Korea. The switch was moved with the Joe Pass endorsement. The present serial # system began around '93 / '94, before that the numbers were random and on little white stickers. Even if the sticker was still there, I don't think the number would be much help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memphs1978 Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 That's an early Emperor II approximately late '80s - early '90s made by Samick in Korea. The switch was moved with the Joe Pass endorsement. The present serial # system began around '93 / '94' date=' before that the numbers were random and on little white stickers. Even if the sticker was still there, I don't think the number would be much help. [/quote'] this guy really is a god.. among men lol :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carverman Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 That's an early Emperor II approximately late '80s - early '90s made by Samick in Korea. The switch was moved with the Joe Pass endorsement. The present serial # system began around '93 / '94' date=' before that the numbers were random and on little white stickers. Even if the sticker was still there, I don't think the number would be much help. [/quote'] I have two EmpIIs. It was an "act of God", to paraphrase Santana's comment on his first PRS, that I ended up with both of them from E-Bay. I only put in one bid and nobody else bid on them, so they both came to live with me. I had to invest some work in them, action, new after market t-o-m (GFS of course), and new GFS Vintage 59s. These are very nicely constructed and finished guitars, definitely keepers from that Korean vintage. Workmanship is better than my '66 Triumph that I used to have. My '91 Samick MIK "Gibson" on the trc is vintage sunburst and has a very sweet ES-175ish sound...a real gem. It has the serial number sticker on it. The other one in cherry burst is a '95 Samick MIK Joe Pass II, (modified the same way) with a custom pickguard and a couple push-pull tone pots to select the tone cap. The only difference is the switch position and as you mentioned (JerryMac), it moved to the upperbout rather than the cutaway as per Joe Pass's endorsement. Joe Pass played mostly ES-175s as some of the old school jazz masters. I would guess because of the florentine (sharp cutaway) those had the switch located to the upper bout. Probably has something to do with the narrow cutaway or perhaps tripping the switch (in the rythmn -UP position)accidently during rythmn sweeps near the neck pickup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 Ive deduced from lack of Joe Pass sig' date=' and switch on lower bout..its pre 91 ....the binding is quite yellowed, and there is fretwear although not too bad..somebody played her for a while for sure..I guess ill have to pull a pot out and date it...any good places to look at pot codes?[/quote'] Asian pots aren't coded like USA pots are so that probably won't work for you. Since you've already deduced it's pre-'91 and it's a Korean-made model and since they didn't start making them in Korea until about 1988 or so... it's either an ''88, an '89, a '90, or a '91 which is as close a time frame as you're going to get but they didn't change from year to year so that's probably more than adequate. The "Gibson" on the truss rod cover came along in maybe 1990 so that may narrow it down some more. Prior to 1990 there was an epsilon on the truss rod cover..at least on the Sheratons from this time frame. As someone mentioned, the serial numbers at this point were on a paper label and very often went missing. Call it a 1990/1991. ...and Al's your uncle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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