Quote:
Originally Posted by MC5C
... My thinking is probably not NY made body, but probably Philadelphia made between '53 and '57? Fantastic find, congrats!
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Agree 100% with the Philly connection - there's a subtle difference in the shoulders/waistline compared to the true 14th Street 16-inchers (being a NYC "hometown" brand - along with Gretsch, Favilla, and of course D'Angelico - I saw plenty of those in younger days) - but in common parlance all pre-Kalamazoo Epis tend to be grouped under the "New York" heading, as their business/executive offices were located there until the Gibson takeover (interestingly enough, upstairs in the building that would later house the legendary Folk City in Greenwich Village), and much as Martin's pre-1898 Zoebisch-distributed instruments are referred to as "New York" in spite of their Nazareth manufacture since 1839. FWIW I try to use the "New York-
era" nomenclature to describe any instrument designed/produced under Stathopoulo family ownership...
BTW here's a Kalamazoo "Gibsonized" Epiphone, a '64 Granada (BTW also available as a
very rare, unique-to-Epiphone Florentine cutaway) built on an ES-120 platform; as I said I've seen two L-50/Zeniths like this, approximately 20 years apart - one new, one used, the last in the mid-80's (and, given their rarity and NYC location, possibly the same guitar in both cases):
- and a '58 Zenith with a blue Kalamazoo label/serial number, but 100% NY-era construction (other than tuners/tailpiece - note difference in peghead from OP) and OHSC:
