Great post, Steve, your discussions of archtop history(especially regarding Epiphone) are always interesting.
This model is fascinating to me, because it's Jonny Smith's and Epiphones version of a 'round' hole archtop, but retaining the standard tone-bar placement('splayed parallel'), and shaping the centered soundhole to fit. My early '30's Epiphone Spartan round-hole, has reverse splayed tone-bars(opposite of a standard f-hole model), to clear the soundhole, resulting in the tone bars coming closer together under the bridge. IMO, the tone & volume are lacking(compared to my other f-hole Epis), and I believe it's because of the bracing arrangement. Gibson used the same arrangement on some of the earliest scroll '0' models, too.
So I've been intrigued by this particular, very rare, Epi model, and would love to hear how it sounds!
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