Epiphone by Gibson???

[ant7629]

Hi

 

Whats the deal with Sherratons that have "Epiphone by Gibson" on the headstock? My friend has an old Sherraton, which we thought was 1980's, but when put typed the serial number into the serial number finder guitar dater project, it didn't give any information for Epiphone... But, I tried it for Gibson and it says it was made in 1976 in the good old USA.

 

Can this be right? There are no letters in the serial number and they are not stamped into the wood, just an old sticker..

 

Thanks

[Biff]

Uncle Al will know more but the "vintage guitar info" says U.S. made Sheratons were discontinued in 1970 (later available in Japanese-made line).

 

 

(edit, fixed the link)

Try this from Gibson:

Epiphone Serial Numbers

 

In 1970, production of Epiphone instruments moved to Japan. Japanese Epiphones were manufactured

between 1970 to 1983. According to author/researcher Walter Carter, the serial numbers on these are

unreliable as a usable tool for dating models. Comparison to catalogs is one of the few means available.

Earlier Kalamazoo labels were generally orange with black printing and said “Made in Kalamazoo”, while

the Japanese instruments featured blue labels which read “Epiphone of Kalamazoo, Michigan” (note that it

doesn't say made in Kalamazoo, nor does it say Made in Japan). While not a solid rule of thumb, research

of the model should be more thorough than just glancing at the label.

 

During the early 1980s, the Japanese production costs became pricey due to the changing ratio of the

dollar/yen. Production moved to Korea, and again the serial numbers are not an exact science as a dating

mechanism. In 1993, a structure was developed where the number (or pair of numbers) following the

initial letter indicates the year of production (i.e. “3” indicates 1993, or a “93” would indicate the same).

[Guest]

Hi

 

Whats the deal with Sherratons that have "Epiphone by Gibson" on the headstock? My friend has an old Sherraton' date=' which we thought was 1980's, but when put typed the serial number into the serial number finder guitar dater project, it didn't give any information for Epiphone... But, I tried it for Gibson and it says it was made in 1976 in the good old USA.

 

Can this be right? There are no letters in the serial number and they are not stamped into the wood, just an old sticker..

 

Thanks[/quote']

 

If it says "Epiphone By Gibson" it was made between 1986 and 1988 in Korea by Samick. The serial numbers are usually the last two digits of the year followed by the month such as "88091234 for a guitar made in September of 1988 but I've also seen where it's only the last digit for the year such as 61001234 for a guitar made in October of 1986. Understanding that the "Epiphone By Gibson" logo was only used on the Sheratons during 1986, 1987, and 1988 does narrow it down a bit and the numbers will make more sense in that context. I Read Walt Carter's passage there and the Boy's a bit confused but I can help him out. In 1971 Epiphone production moved to Japan and was at first re-labeled Aria model guitars with cosmetic alterations but there weren't any Sheratons in this line.

Starting in 1975 Epiphone Japan began to market a higher standard instrument that was made by Matsumoku but at first this production was limited to the Japanese market. There was a Sheraton model in this line of guitars and a damn fine one. There can be no confusion because the headstock logo used on the Japanese models is completely different. In fact, the reason the Korean-made models originally said "Epiphone By Gibson" was to keep them from being confused with the Japanese models but Epiphone soon just started using the Gibson era "epsilon logo" and the Japanese version used the New York era script logo.

 

A quick Sheraton history goes like this- The guitar was introduced after the Gibson ES-335 in 1957 as an up-scale nod to the ES-335. The guitar originally had either a Frequensator tail piece or a vibrato system either by Epiphone or Bigsby. There were no Gibson-made Sheratons with a stop tail piece and all Gibson-made models had mini humbuckers. In 1975 when the higher scale Japanese versions were made the Sheraton now had full-sized humbuckers and stop tail pieces....and rosewood fretboards (the originals were ebony). A few years later a Frequensator became a model option but they still had full-sized humbuckers. These Matsumoku instruments were made right up until the introduction of the Korean-made Epiphones in 1987 but then ceased being made by Matsumoku and Terada (maker of today's Elite semis and hollows) began making them again for a limited Asian market but it wasn't long before they moved out into the world from Japan. Meanwhile in Nashville in 1993 Gibson was making 250 American-made ...not just USA assembled... Sheratons. These were the only American-made Sheratons made after August of 1970. They could have done better with these reissues but they're still pretty awesome guitars. I have two Rivieras from this series and they're Gibson guitars with Epiphone headstocks lol...that's not me fantasizing this...that's what they are...period. There's no way around that...they are quite rare though but do come up on E Bay. In the 90's Epiphone cranked up production in Korea and now I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Sheraton is Epiphone's best seller. In the late 90's Epiphone came out with a John Lee Hooker endorsed model that had both a Korean version and a Japanese-made model that was labeled as being "assembled in the USA" These came in two model, a "Sheraton" with a Frequensator and a Sheraton II with a stop tail piece. These are still around today.

 

...and Al's your uncle.