gearhead

Yep! Great guitar! Gibson 490R/498T pickups. Plus i love how the neck is set a bit further from the center of the guitar. A LOT better access to upper frets!

They are high output/ceramic magnet pickups.

Kind of what I thought. I've looked around and have only found pics of one other guitar with a finish like that. And I'm about 99% sure it's exactly like you said, a '98 from Korea. Thanks for the input!

Most likely the gold top finish.

Looks like a 2000 model made at the Fuji-Gen plant. http://www.epiphonewiki.org/index/Epiphone_Serial_Number_Decoding.php

That serial number sequence was used from 1970-1975.

I found my Epi serialization info, serial numbers from 810000-810999 were used in 1966, 1967, 1969. Hope that narrows it down for you!

The headstock looks a lot better in those pics. The logo looks right, Sits where it should, and yes, I think it's most likely a Korean made Epi. The pickups may not give any clues. I have an older Korean Special, headstock looks the same, the pickups are SAMSHIN, but have no adjustable pole pieces.

It looks legit. The first ones were made in Korea, with the gold colored Epi logo (2005), later ones were made in China, and I've seen pics of a 2011, it had the silver colored logo. Not sure when the logo changed or when production moved to China. Yours looks to be a Chinese variant by the serial number and inspection decal.

Well the headstock looks to be cut kind of offset, but it could be camera angle. The tuners look new, maybe replaced? And the truss rod cover looks to be the old style, late 90"s, early 2000's. You have any pics of the front of the guitar? And I would definitely like to see the rear of the pickups, and the inside of the pickup cavities. Missing the serial number is strange. But I'm not totally convinced it's a fake. Is it a LP Standard or what?

Nice guitar! I'm not sure how the serial numbers went on those guitars, but there is a 1966 Casino on Reverb, serial number 434125. 1966 Epiphone Casino And another with serial number 335787 that is listed as a 1965. 1965 Epiphone casino Quote from A history of the Epiphone Casino web page ( A History of the Epiphone Casino ) " During the time that Paul McCartney purchased his Casino in 1964 and John Lennon and George Harrison purchased their Casinos before the Revolver tour in 1966, fingerboard inlays changed from dot to parallelogram inlays and the tortoise shell pickguard changed to white. Pickup covers, which were nickel from 1963-1964, changed to chrome. " I would guess by your serial number, it's somewhere around a 1968 to early1970's.

I think, that unless you can find some kind of "mini" push/pull pots, that it will be an issue. You may have to install mini toggle switches. As far as extra shielding, I really doubt you would "need" it. But if you did add some shielding tape to rear of the pick guard, you could run a wire from the control cavity to the rear pickup route and strip the insulation so that it will get pinched between the pick guard and the body, making contact with the tape of course.

How about posting some pics? Headstock, logo, inside the control cavity, rear of the pickups.

Here is a pic of the serial number.

I bought my girl a Special II at GC for $75 for Christmas. Pretty straight guitar. But the finish is unusual. The only other guitars I have found pics of online with anything similar were some Special II's that came in player packs. I believe it is a 1998, it has one of those early serial numbers that won't quite decode. The neck plate has serial # 098031013. I think the first digit should be an "O" instead of a zero. And has "Gibson" on the truss rod cover. It doesn't have a Custom Shop emblem on the back of the headstock. Any ideas of what this finish is, or what years they used it?

A little more info to add: I have an Ibanez SZ720 that I installed some SD "Detonator" (HB108 N/B) pickups in. The Duncan Performer Series Detonator is a Duncan Distortion with caps screws, (no retainer under the coils for the normal adjustable pole pieces to screw into) . They look very much like the Invader series pickups. And sound close too. The Invader has 3 ceramic magnets, while the Detonator has one double thick ceramic magnet. And they both have the large headed cap screws on both coils. The cap screws give them a "darker" sound because of the extended magnetic field. That being said, the pickups were very bass oriented in this particular guitar, so I decided to try some mods to see how it affected the tone. First I tried changing magnets, went to Alnico 5's and 3"s. Really didn't have much effect on tone, they were still very bassy. So I decided to try swapping the cap screws for slug pole pieces. The diameter of the screws are .1875" (3/16"), which is standard size for solid slugs. (These pickups have no retainer under the coils for regular adjustable pole pieces to screw into) I tried swapping only one coil, then both coils (with the Alnico magnets). It seemed to make more difference on the neck unit than the bridge unit. So I left the neck unit with the Alnico mags and solid slugs. I tried the bridge unit with the Alnico and ceramic mags, still pretty bass oriented with any of the magnets. I then decided to take out the 500K volume pot for the bridge PU and installed a 1Meg pot. Now that definitely gave the pickup more bright top end. And I experimented with soldering different resistors across the pot to lower the resistance slightly and see how it affected the tone. Different resistor values gave different results, but basically with a large resistance pot like a 1 Meg, less high frequencies are filtered to ground. That is why Fender single coils use 250K pots, because it cuts a lot of the highs, and Gibson humbuckers use 500K pots, so more highs get to the amp. In the end, I used the 1 Meg pot (with no mods to it), the original ceramic magnet, and one row of solid slugs and one row of cap screws in the bridge pickup. So as you can see, there are a LOT of different modifications that can be made to change the tone (and output) of pickups. If you buy a set of pickups, and they are too bright, or too bassy, you can do some cheap mods to adjust the tone, if you have some soldering skills and the time to do it.

SWEET AXE! LOOKS GREAT IN THE BLUE FINISH!

Megafrog, Man, both of your RD's are sharp! I've been thinkinf g about the Epi version, but I know if I got one I would be changing pickups, and would want 2 humbuckers. Hmmmmmmm............

Our bass player has a 1996 Del Rey. Pretty nice guitar! Wouldn't mind having one.

Revolution Six Man that is a sharp RD! I almost bought one of those when they first came out. Just something about it it I like.

I would do one as-is! I LOVE the neck! GREAT access. Of course the neck and headstock binding, maybe a nice headstock inlay, color and hardware options would add a lot to the appeal. I would definitely try one out for sure.

The 700T pickups I have do not have any sticker on the back. Brass base with "Epiphone" only. One white wire and one ground (shield). Wax potted. The one sitting here reads out at 16.5k ohms. I have these in 3 of my Epi solid bodies. I play hard rock/metal, and these sound good on my amp. Playing through a Marshall AVT50H and a 4x12 with G12T75's in the top and G12H100's in the bottom. Surprisingly, I can walk right up to the front of my amp, at volume loud enough to play with our full band, and they do not feed back. Also playing some downtuned material, (CGCFAD is one tuning) and they sound great to my ears. Full tone, great distortion. I don't know what the guys who say they sound like tin are playing through, or what pedals they use, but through my Marshall, and my other guitarist's EVH5150 III they sound good. And I only use a wah, and sometimes an eq for slight boost. I rely on my amps pre-amp sound for distortion. Also, I would say tone wise, that it's comparable to the Gibson 498T I have in my Epi SG, but the Gibson is more microphonic than the 700T. A little brighter than say my SD Invader, but it allows solos to push through better. I'm guessing they don't like the sound of high output ceramic magnet pickups? Just my opinion. And if any of you have 700T pickups you hate and want to part with, msg me, I may be interested.

Well it's been a while since this was up, and a while since I got my L500 pu. I put it in the bridge of my Turser JT-200 Pro. It's a nice unit! It doesn't have that "raspy" distortion like my Mighty Mite's do. Smoother sounding. It doesn't "squeal" very easily either when in front of my amp. Gets a good clean as well as distortion sound. Think it's comparable to maybe one of the old "T-Tops" I used to have, but quieter. Should be good for blues, rock etc. Just thought I'd let anyone know that might want to.......

I'M RESURRECTING A LONG DEAD THREAD HERE, BUT IT'S BECAUSE I NEVER ORDERED ONE OF THESE PICKUPS TILL NOW. Ok, well I've finally ordered a Bill Lawrence XL500, NOT A BILL LAWRENCE USA! Picked it up on eBay for $41, the guy said he bought this back in the early 90's, and ordered it directly from Bill Lawrence (Bill & Becky). As soon as I get it and put it in one of my guitars I'll post a review on it! Should have it here in a few days.

rgvilla55, Thanks for the reply! I've read a lot of good things about the L-500XL, and I've heard Dimebag's guitar in person, and yes it was a very full, rich sound. I'll check out the link you posted. I haven't ordered one yet, been buying some other necessary equipment to be able to actually practice. But I'm about ready to order one in the next week or two. What kind of amp setup are you using? Have you checked out this site with info on Bill Lawrence Pickups? billlawrencereview.com