JuanCarlosVejar Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 Folks, Just want to say this is one of my favorite sounding acoustics of all time: Back in 1951 Epiphone was building those Texans with Arch laminated maple backs.I am aware that the clip has been shared by me and others through the years but it never hurts to hear that maple ring again According to his girlfriend that Epi was his favorite acoustic. Glad Jimi appreciated a wood so many look at with disdain. JC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 Great clip. He’s playing a NY Epiphone (pre Gibson) sunburst F79, which of course morphed into the F79 Texan when Gibson purchased Epiphone. Also worth searching and checking out on You Tube is another clip of Hendrix playing an acoustic 12 string. QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvi Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 jimi could make a 2x4 board with a string sing, cool git tho ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 Great clip. He’s playing a NY Epiphone (pre Gibson) sunburst F79, which of course morphed into the F79 Texan when Gibson purchased Epiphone. Also worth searching and checking out on You Tube is another clip of Hendrix playing an acoustic 12 string. QM aka Jazzman Jeff That Epi went up for auction years back. I believe it fetched in the upper $70K range. It is an earlier version than the FT-79 you and I own so would have had the solid walnut body. Supposedly that is the guitar Jimi worked out the songs for Electric Ladyland with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JuanCarlosVejar Posted April 7, 2018 Author Share Posted April 7, 2018 That Epi went up for auction years back. I believe it fetched in the upper $70K range. It is an earlier version than the FT-79 you and I own so would have had the solid walnut body. Supposedly that is the guitar Jimi worked out the songs for Electric Ladyland with. The 1942 model had rectangular block fingerboard inlays and the original stick-pin Epiphone logo. In 1954 the model had parallelogram fingerboard inlays and a vertical oval peghead inlay. In the late 1940s to mid 1950's the FT-79 body was made with Maple Photos: https://mensgear.net/2016/11/jimi-hendrixs-epiphone-ft-79-acoustic-guitar.html JC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted April 8, 2018 Share Posted April 8, 2018 The 1942 model had rectangular block fingerboard inlays and the original stick-pin Epiphone logo. In 1954 the model had parallelogram fingerboard inlays and a vertical oval peghead inlay. In the late 1940s to mid 1950's the FT-79 body was made with Maple Photos: https://mensgear.net/2016/11/jimi-hendrixs-epiphone-ft-79-acoustic-guitar.html JC Epiphone flattops do not come on the market all that frequently these days. Not all that many flattops were built between 1931 and 1956. Gibson produced more J45s and 50s in 1956 alone than the total number of all flattops Epiphone built between 1931 and 1956. The FT-79 shows up in 1941 but the 1944 catalog notes that all flattops had been discontinued because of the War. The big changes to the guitar show up in the 1949/50 catalog which is when, among other things, they went to laminate maple rim and arched back which Epi referred to as a "Tone Back." My FT-79 has a dot inlay board which replaced the parallelograms sometime in late 1954. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted April 8, 2018 Share Posted April 8, 2018 Just an afterthought but the Epiphone was one of those guitars it took me a while to warm up to. I got it about twelve years ago at my favorite little Mom & Pop music shop. The owner kept telling me to take it home and live with it a while hoping to sell it to me. I brought it home at least three times over the course of maybe nine months but always returned it. It had the typical Epi binding rot and some wingnut had removed the pickguard and screwed down a humongous thick double pickguard in its place. That did not really bother me as the guitar was structurally sound and what was needed was an easy fix. I was just not initially crazy about the sound although I really liked the soft V French Heel neck. This Epi is a fairly heavy guitar. If nothing else, the top is thick enough that the original scratchplate was set in so it sat flush with the wood. But when the owner dropped the price to $400 just to get it off his wall, I figured what the heck. If nothing else I could do a bit of the needed work and use it as trade bait for something else. I took it home and got the guitar more presentable, adding the widest nut I could get away with (1950s Epis were not overly generous with nut width). I cannot recall how many different string brands and gauges I went through finally determining this guitar worked a lot better with a heavier gauge. I actually did put it up for sale/trade on two different occasions. In the end though I turned down all offers, some of which were pretty nice. The guitar had for whatever reason grown on me to the point I could not part with it. I have fallen out of love with guitars I owned but never in love with one after the fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted April 8, 2018 Share Posted April 8, 2018 Zombywoof-I agree with all you said about the F79. My 1955 F79 is awesome, too! I found mine at a vintage guitar show where it had a ton of dust and caked on wax on it, sitting off to the side of a seller’s booth. I went home from the vintage guitar show and kept thinking about what I had seen. The next morning I was first in line to get back at he guitar to buy the guitar. Once home I cleaned it all up and found it to be a total gem of a vintage guitar...all for only $400, also. That was back circa 2002. The 2012 Vintage Guitar Price Guide shows it selling retail in mint condition for $3000. (I don’t have an updated guide, but these things rarely go down in price.). Years later I saw the seller/dealer at another guitar Show and told him how he once had sold me the once dirt covered F79 for only $400 when it was clearly worth more. His response to me was that he was just glad it had found a good owner and home. It’s now in the top five of my favorite guitars. QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted April 8, 2018 Share Posted April 8, 2018 Hey Jazzman, that is crazy you paid the same exact price for yours. If I recall the guy I got mine from initially quoted me a price of $700 which would have actually been a killer deal on its own. Here is what mine looked like after I removed the double pickguard. You can still see gaps in the binding where it had popped off and I cut it and glued it back down. That inset pickguard was a pain in the butt. After two attempts at making a replacement, both of which were a smidgeon off, I finally gave up and had my repair guy make me one. Even though I did not have the original pickguard, the "E" Epsilon was still in the case. He also filled all the screw holes and did a finish touch up. The gaps in the binding though remain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted April 8, 2018 Share Posted April 8, 2018 Mine is a natural finish, with the original pick guard, which seems molded into the guitar with age.. Also, with dot markers on the neck. It had a lengthy old worn wooden saddle, which I had to pick and scrape out of the bridge. It now has a lengthy bone saddle, I put in to replace it. The back is bowled maple. The headstock has the original metal Epiphone plate with a white truss rod cover. Has the thick solid wood top you described. The F79 label inside the guitar has a cigarette burn on it from who knows where/when, which guves it an ambience of this guitar has been around. Plays and sounds awesome. Yep, paid only $400 just like you did for yours. A steal.... QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merciful-evans Posted April 9, 2018 Share Posted April 9, 2018 It looks like the neck dots have escaped! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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