cunningham26

the white pickups look great on it. gary had good taste! agree with steven i'd take the pickguard off asap, then send some pictures to Gruhns for an actual assessment and valuation. you'll want that insured, it's a beaut!

Looks good to me and that price sounds really fair

love that song!

that thing is super cool

Yea prior to the sale to the Etsy brand of companies, Reverb was owned and kind of operated as an extension of CME. great shop, great reputation, all around there are probably only a handful of shops i'd recommend as similar options.

i dont think it ever dawned on me that L50s had a bound neck and pg- i always thought it was just a matter of dot vs. trap inlays. I stand corrected! as an aside, it really grinds my gears that people cite guitarhq's collectability range- it's clearly a web 1.0 resource and its assessments are at least 20 years out of date at this point

script logo and trap inlays would make it a 46 L50, not an L48. Here's my '46 L48 w. added p90, repro pg and tuners. once you've seen enough banners it's also quite easy to tell the mid-late 40's burst style compared to the 50s, much more amber vs black and yellows. https://imgur.com/a/92uzvwQ

to answer the OP- if you are considering some epiphones to add to a stable of gibsons, i would look at the USA made casino and acoustic offerings, or the Elitist/Elite series that were produced more recently out of the Terada factory in Japan. If you're looking at acoustics, i would only consider the MIUSA/vintage made by Gibson, the rare Elitist models, or a masterbilt you find to your liking. From there there are some winners and losers from all other factories, down to personal preference and as mentioned above, willingness to have a guitar that is not spec'd exactly the same as its gibson counterpart. good luck!

i definitely appreciate that the MIC epiphones uniformly look like their gibson counterparts- a lot of those MIK ones have odd body shapes and different years and factories have diff finishes, shapes, sizes, etc. Japan it seems like it was all pretty good quality, but you were just getting a factory guitar with a brand on it - why most listings from that era spell out "Matsumoku Epiphone" because they look a lot like other brands coming out of the same factory. in my experience, whether it be because it's a fresh guitar or what, i've tried out casinos and sheratons (my quest for the 62 reissue sheraton had me test a ton of those) i never found a MIC epiphone that didn't feel dipped in poly and just kind of lacking in one area or another- just didn't come together to be working as a unit. While you may have fine products, "production is swapped to somewhere cheaper" and more and more people will be testing out and playing cheap guitars and finding them unsatisfactory. If the differences between an $800 sheraton and a $200 harley benton are negligible, you have to expect people will want more for the premium price.

plenty of posts in this forum on quality issues with the MIC ones, or feelings of superior quality with the ones made elsewhere. apart from specific issues with those specific guitars, there's also the human rights violations, ethnic cleansing, etc etc

Someone either misspelled Michael or Michelle and probably didnt win them back either way. hope you have better luck with it- here's the info from the epiphone wiki A-10 1979-1980 Made in Tawain Body: Slim-waisted folk body style Laminated spruce top Mahogany back & sides 14.625" body width 3.875" body depth Neck: 1 piece mahogany neck with soft "V" profile Rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays 20 frets Rosewood headstock overlay with gold silkscreen "Epi' logo 24.75" scale 1.68" nut width Binding: Laminated black & white body binding Multi-ply 3-ring rosette Hardware: Chrome hardware Non-adjustable rosewood bridge Individual stamped tuners Black pickguard

don't blame you at all! it's really great, hope it brings back great memories and helps create new ones

If you want to ship it a little bit of a shorter path i may be your guy! i love it- here's another one in action from one of my favorite players. let me know if you'd want to sell- money gets to arizona a lot easier 🙂

i have the drop in saddle on my '68 and it improved volume and a perceivable lift in mids and highs- definitely wouldnt go back to the rw saddle but happy it sits in a bag in the case if someone wants to return it to the original spec. getting rid of the thick bridgeplate and hardware is certainly going to lighten things up but the intangible question would be does this alteration affect the sound you expect from this guitar? if you modify a gibson to be as light and airy as a martin, and it sounds like a martin, is that an improvement if you lose some of the gibson thump? im totally biased because the sound of mine is THE sound i look for most of the time (depending on the room) so i don't see the appeal in heavy mods to get a guitar to sound like something other than what it is. really happy with that bone saddle though- marginal, reversible gains.

agree with all this- looks like a mahogany top which is kind of cool. I would swap out the tuners and maybe the pickguard if it's over the finish, but otherwise grandpa had nice taste!

great rundown- thanks!

I dont know, the casino will always and forever have its fans just because of the fabs, and a miusa casino wasn't realllyyyy competing with a gibson product. given the popularity of the MIUSA stuff i bet they're kicking themselves for not doing a limited run with the '62 reissue sheratons, those looked so great but every one i played (3-5 on the wall at GC) sounded just ok and felt like it was dipped in a drum of poly. which brings us back to this worn casino which hopefully has that matte, thin finish and at least has the feel of nitro.

digging in further looks like it was mij and assembled in the us... maybe someday!

cool acoustic. if you're considering restoration i'd definitely put it in the hands of a skilled luthier vs trying to do anything yourself. bringing it back to life in the hands of a professional, you should have a pretty solid player on you hands.

They did the MIUSA john lee hooker sheratons back in the 90s. it's what became the union jack guitar played by noel gallagher at maine road appreciate this rundown - there are a bunch of thoughts here, but any quick thoughts between IBJL and the 61? I've eyed an IBJL for a few years but their prices have been kind of all over the place. people and certain listing websites confuse them with the 1965 casino and so the pricing is way off as folks see what are labeled the same guitar selling between $800-2500. would love a 1965 but more likely to snag an IBJL on a good day if i can get it under $1000

Love it- congrats! ive got a '68 and it's that dreamy tone that just sounds so GIBSON

Club Passim (nee Club 47) is still there, and one of the best rock venues in the city is nearby (The Sinclair) but everything else is banks now.

i LOVE that photo! MIT in '63, you were right in the thick of it with as Bob Dylan called it, the likes of Rick Von Schmidt and the rolling green pastures of Harvard

hi! sorry for the delay, this part of these forums can be a little quiet. You appear to have a modified ES-140T 3/4, a student-level guitar for smaller hand, produced in the late 50s. It would originally only have one pickup near the neck. They are a little bit collectible because of their small size- ive seen a few female singers play them and prefer them. It looks great but given the heavy modifications as-is probably not worth a ton. the range according to Reverb sits around $1500-2200, so i'd estimate this an 1000-1500 guitar on a good day. hope that helps!

your note on teardrop pickguards reminded me that we've hashed out this convo in a previous thread, so sorry to repeat myself but... i swapped the saddle on my adj for the bone one from philly luthier and that made a big diff- less thumpy , brighter high end. Since im relatively newer as the caretaker of this guitar, i didn't want to make-non reversible changes to it and the rosewood saddle sits in the case. all of these parts have been doing its thing to work together for 53 years, so unless something breaks down (e.g. mummy finger tuner buttons) i'm not a fan of modifying things for perceived gains. if it's not giving you the sound you want, maybe it's not the right guitar for you. I'd definitely check out the dss-17 or maybe this beard highball? at this point there are enough companies and folks building stuff that it seems a little funny to modify vs. get something custom