1951 Epiphone FT-79 Texan Jumbo Guitar

Update 2021: I've updated the photos, added a video, and updated some of the description...

I've played a lot of nice flattops, but this guitar is exceptional. It's owned by a local state senator (so I call it the "Singing Senator's" guitar) and came in for some light/"get 'er ready" work first in 2015 and now in 2021 for some more serious repairs. It's pretty beat-up but my eyes lit up on seeing it because actual Epiphone (New York) x-braced flattop guitars are quite rare. There are scores of the Gibson-made 60s models but these ones that share the Epiphone curvaceous archtop-body outline (this is a 16" mini-jumbo shape) are very hard to find.

In fact, the build is like a strange mix of Gibson-sounding x-bracing and top design, Guild-style (arched, ply) back, and Epiphone curves and neck profile/scale length. The result is a very powerful, focused, and rich sound with plenty of tight bass and oodles of volume. The owner's played it in enough that it's got a good, velvety lower-mids/bass sound, too.

On the features-list are the slick/fast 1 5/8" Epiphone nut width coupled to a medium-C neck shape and tight (~7 1/4") board radius. It has a long-as-heck 25 1/2" scale and despite the owner's taste for medium strings, I only suggest 54w-12 lights on this at max because, like a lot of Epiphones from this era, the truss rod is maxed-out because the design of the rod is not that great. The neck only deflects a hair under tension, though, after recent work.

The body is solid spruce on the top and ply maple for the back and sides. The neck is 3-piece maple/mahogany and the board and bridge are Brazilian rosewood.

Old repairs included a new pickguard, one replacement (period) tuner, and some fussing with the original frets and saddle to get it to play decently. Fresh repairs (2021) include a neck reset, board plane and refret, replacement (Gotoh, aged, Kluson-style) tuners, filling-in of some bridge gouging/mods, and a new saddle slot and new bone saddle. It's now playing beautifully and sounds tremendous.

Non-original parts are the tuners, saddle, pickguard, bridge pins, and endpin.