[Dave Richard]

I believe Johnny Smith specified the trapezoidal soundhole, when discussing and ordering the guitar from Epiphone. I’d guess he wanted to try combining the parallel tone bars, with a ‘centered’ soundhole that would fit. I myself am very curious about how this design sounds. A standard round hole prevents the use of parallel tone bars(not truly parallel, of course), requiring the use of x-bracing, or Gibson’s h-bracing, or Epiphone’s own unsuccesful(IMO) use of reverse-splay tone-bars.

This design did not apparently satisfy Smith, because he ended up with the Gibson made, Smith endorsed JS model, which I believe is x-braced. He wanted some of that flattop tone, in his archtop.