2009 Epiphone "Inspired by John Lennon" Casino Electric Guitar
This is a really impressive guitar. The standard Epiphone Casino (these days) is a Chinese-made model. There's also an American-made model built alongside Gibson products in the Gibson factory. This one is situated right in-between. It's Indonesian-made, but very high quality. Homework was done when getting the details right -- it handles and feels like the '60s beast it mimics, though with a few differences.
The first difference is that this has a satin finish rather than a gloss nitro one. I like that on a new guitar, anyway -- it feels clean and can, of course, be a lot thinner than a modern gloss finish. It also mimic's John's refinish job. The second main difference is that it's not entirely a hollowbody guitar like an old ES-330, Casino, or ES-125T. It has hollowbody construction but there's a roughly 2x2" square mahogany post that bridges the top and the back under the bridge on the inside. This "soundpost" setup means it'll be a little less acoustically loud than a period guitar but it will have much less feedback, a bit more sustain, and overall it will be a bit more stable. The overall sound isn't changed very much, though, and I often stick "soundposts" in older hollowbody electric guitars to tame feedback for their owners, anyhow.
All that out of the way: what do I think? Yes, it's the right size, shape, and feel. Yes, it has the classic metal-covered-P90 tone -- a hair less aggressive than "regular" dogear pickups and with maybe a tiny scoop on the lower-mids. I like the neck a lot -- it's home-base if you're used to period Gibsons -- and the guitar itself is stable. The truss rod and neck adjust as they should and there's plenty of adjustment room at the bridge.
The owner modified a few things on the guitar -- he added extra thumbwheels for the base of the bridge threads, plastic saddles in the bridge itself, removed the pickguard (or left it off, rather) per the original Lennon guitar, and then went to the trouble of adding Kluson-style screwholes under the Grover Rotomatic tuners at the back of the headstock... as if the Klusons had been yanked off like on Lennon's guitar. During setup I put the pickguard back on (it was in the case).
Model: Inspired by John Lennon Casino
Made in: Indonesia
Serial number: 09121500469
Body wood: ply maple
Bridge: Tune-O-Matic w/replacement plastic saddles
Fretboard: rosewood
Neck wood: mahogany
Pickups: 2x metal-covered P90
Tone: midsy, aggressive, snarly
Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall (fast)
String gauges: 46w-10 lights
Neck shape: slim C
Board radius: ~12"
Truss rod: adjustable
Neck relief: straight
Fret style: medium
Scale length: 24 3/4"
Nut width: 1 11/16"
String spacing at nut: 1 3/8"
String spacing at bridge: 2"
Body length: 19"
Body width: 16"
Body depth: 1 3/4" +arching
Weight: 6 lb 10 oz
Condition notes: clean with only minor use-wear and aging to parts throughout. There are extra tuner holes (like on John's, hee hee) in the back of the headstock, extra thumbwheels at the bridge (like on the old ones), and plastic saddles added to the bridge (like the old ones). I did have to turn the bridge around and swap saddles backwards/forwards to get intonation right. Turning it around (adjuster screw heads to the tailpiece-side) means that the saddles no longer rattle as the tension forces them down correctly -- a problem with these old-style ABR bridges. Oh, one more thing -- the owner colorized the fretboard extension's side to match the mahogany color of the neck -- like on the original. He also added a screwhole to the center-bottom of the truss rod cover, but then swapped it back to the three-screw configuration later. Check the pics closely to see...
It comes with: its original hard case in good order and some original sales information.
Comments
HOW MUCH?