Vic Flick

Yes, Samick made Epiphone Les Pauls in the late '80s into the '90s. Around 1993, Epiphone expanded and used several manufactures in Korea. Samick presently runs a large factory in Indonesia, and still makes some guitars for Epiphone (as far as I know). Samick stopped using the Samick brand around 1999 at which time they adopted the Greg Bennett brand name. So this guitar would be pre-1999, and judging by the general appearance, I would guess early '90s. Specifically, the tuners look like the tuners found on the early Samick made Epiphones. Samicks are well made guitars, $250 seems like a good price. Nice find, you'd pay more for the Epiphone equivalent. Good luck & enjoy the guitar.

It's technically plywood, but not like you would buy in Home Depot. It's made of thin pieces of hardwood, same way the vintage ones were made. Same as Gibsons like the ES-335. Guild Starfires. Gretsch Nashvilles & Country Gents. Most thin lines will have a laminate body although some top of the line hollow body guitars like the L5 or Gretsch Country Club might have a solid spruce top. So don't be disappointed, some of the greatest guitars ever made had plywood bodies.

The strange by Gibson one. There were some Korean made Epis prior to 1986' date=' I think 1983 was the first ones, but they were not impressive. In was in 1986 that the new owners decided to revive the brand (see my last post) and bring back the Sheraton. The first Korean Sherrys had the [i']by Gibson[/i], and at that time, Matsumoku was still making them in Japan for the Japanese market. Matsumoku closed down in 1988, coincidentally about the same time they dropped by Gibson from the headstock. Terada and FujiGen took over the manufacturing in Japan for the Japanese market, and those guitars evolved into the Orvilles and Epiphone Japan lines, then eventually the Elitist.

Joe' date=' one thing to consider is that Epiphone was a dying company in 1986, they didn't sell a whole lot of guitars at that time. In fact, Epiphone had less than $1 million revenue in 1985. It was January 1986 that Juszkiewicz, Berryman & Zebrowski purchased Gibson and decided to revamp the Epiphone line. And even though Epiphone grew at a good rate in those first few years, there were production problems (fire, flood, labor problems) that made it difficult to maintain a steady flow of instruments. So there might not be as many of those [i']Epiphone by Gibson[/i] as you might think.

Epiphone used a cursive E going back to the 1930s: In fact, I had a 1982 Emperor (Matsumoku) that had the cursive E: The original late '80s Korean Samicks were similar to Matsumokus, so it's not surprising that they originally adopted the cursive E. But I will say, that's the first one I've seen, it must be one of the first ones made. Maybe even a prototype. As a side point, the story I heard is that the by Gibson was added to the Samicks to easily distinguish them from the Matsumokus.

I think we should just scrape the whole idea and mount a Floyd on it!!! Just kiddin' I originally had a similar idea, I was thinking of using the threads on a TonePros to mount a tension bar. But what concerns me is the size. The tension bar will have to withstand a lot of upward force, so the bar & bracket will have to be fairly heavy duty. Can you design something small enough to mount to the bridge yet strong enough to not to give under pressure. And although the mod I suggested would involve two small holes, it would be strong and pretty unobtrusive. Hanging a bar off the bridge would involve using a non original bridge, plus it's going look like it's been modded, even if it is reversible. If it's done right, I don't think many people will realize that a tension bar has been added to the vibrola, but everyone will spot a bar hanging off the bridge. Having said all that, I would suggest that he bring it to a skilled tech, and run the ideas past him.

I think you, me & Musikron agree on the concept, it's just figuring out the best way to do it. Your Omega Bar idea is great, I wonder how expensive it would be to have a shop make one for you. I was thinking of my idea, I thought of a way you could do it without drilling the holes all the way through the metal. Just drill the hole on the inside and spring load one side. You would push the bar in the hole with the spring, align it with the hole on the other side, then the spring will pop it into the other side. That way you wouldn't even see holes. (I hope I was able to explain that OK for you). About Matthais Sturm, if you looked at his pictures on MySpace, you'll see him playing a 1968 Cherry Red Gibson ES-330. I sold him that guitar. I don't know how popular he is, but he told me he does play in the USA on occasion, and said I should see go him play the next time he's in Los Angeles. And thanks for checking out my SoundClick. I'm going to check your links tonight.

Yep' date=' I've actually had two different white ones come my way over the years. I'd like to get a Samick Sherry again some day, white would be my preference. But to make Joe happy, I'll get a Sunburst with the [i']by Gibson[/i] on the headstock. I don't think they made the white ones until the '90s.