1947 Epiphone Triumph Carved-Top Archtop Guitar

Overview: It's been raining old Epiphone archtops around here, lately! This '47 Triumph is quite the old box -- punchy and direct but with a good, lower-mids chunk to the sound and plenty of carrying-power. It's also easy on the eyes and the neck is rather quick for its age.

It's mostly original but I'm pretty sure that dot-inlay fretboard is an older replacement as it lacks the fancy Triumph inlay-style and binding, has a slightly-shorter (25 3/8" vs 25 1/2") scale length, and 14" radius rather than the tighter Epiphone-style radius. I'm guessing it may be a replacement Martin-style fretboard instead. It gives it a little more of a "standard guitar" feel, though, as compared to the super-curvy Epi boards.

Repairs included: I gave it a fresh neck reset, re-repaired a damaged neckblock/side area, replaced a little missing binding on the pickguard, leveled and dressed the frets, lightly-adjusted the bridge fit, cleaned it up, and set it up. It was also missing its pickguard bracket but I happened to have a spare Epiphone one in my parts-bins and so fit that, too. It's playing spot-on and ready to go.

• Weight: 5 lbs 12 oz
• Scale length: 25 3/8"
• Nut width: 1 11/16"
• Neck shape: medium soft V/C
• Board radius: 14"
• Depth at first fret: 0.89"
• Depth at seventh fret: 0.92"
• Body width: 17 3/8"
• Body depth: 3 1/4"
• Top wood: solid, carved spruce
• Back & sides wood: solid maple
• Bracing type: tonebar
• Bridge: adjustable rosewood
• Fretboard: rosewood
• Neck wood: maple (multi-piece)
• Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 54w-12 lights
• Truss rod: adjustable (some room left)
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: medium/narrower (vintage)

Condition notes: The bridge is a period Gibson bridge that was fit to the guitar. I'm almost certain the fretboard is a replacement, Martin-style one. It has, of course, newer, medium-style frets. There's a bit of replacement binding on the pickguard and a few small replacement tiny patches around the guitar's edges. There's a repaired crack (filled with spruce) on the top that's visible just below the pickguard. It's a nice job! There's an older repair to a hairline crack on the back-upper-bout (pictured).  There's a burn mark on the top-upper-bout, treble side. The finish appears original throughout but the top is likely buffed a bit some time in the past. The endpin is a replacement. During the neck reset I also reinforced the hairline crack repair to the dovetail joint/side with some internal bolts that can be accessed with an extension if need be. I reset the neck a little higher in the joint because the truss rod end likes to kink-up the fretboard extension on these old Epiphones, otherwise.

It comes with: It has its presumably-original, old brown case.

Consignor tag: JVBH