1960 Epiphone Sheraton Blonde/Natural

Gibson bought out Epiphone in 1957 with the intention of taking over their line of upright string basses. They bought the name and all the equipment and the leftover parts. Gibson was unable to get any traction with the line of basses but put together a line of guitars that were expected to be slightly below the regular Gibson line in quality and price. Except that they weren't. Epiphones from 1957 to 1969 were every bit as good as the Gibsons from the era and in some cases, even better. The Sheraton was the top of the Epi semi hollow line and pretty much the equivalent of the ES-355 mono. The pickups, at first, were leftover Epiphone "New York" single coils but switched over to mini humbuckers just after this guitar was built. This is probably the last NY pickup equipped Sheraton or close to it. These were very expensive guitars priced at around $600 at the time-about the same as a 355. The Epiphone built neck is a joy to play. It's chunky with a medium soft vee profile. Just great. My favorite neck ever made. The pickups are what I would describe as a P90 with manners. Output is relatively low and the tone is very musical. Wonderful for blues but probably not your hard rocker. I would guess jazz would be excellent as well but since I don't play it, I wouldn't really know. Rare and then some, records show that only 9 were made in blonde in 1960 (and some had mini hums) and only 3 in 59. That's it for blonde Sheratons with NY pickups. Original Epiphone tweed case. This guitar is near mint and 100% original including the frets. You will not find another like this.