Quote:
Originally Posted by mrjop1975
...I seemed to remember the same as you about reading somewhere that Epiphone realized they made a boo-boo and were going to retool and rethink the archtops in the Masterbilt series....As it is, if they ever did come back with one, and if I had the chance to try one and loved it, I would sell off my Olympic. Since that won't happen with what I noticed in their current offerings, I will be holding onto it for the time being...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrjop1975
...I have a honeyburst Olympic model...because my first guitar style after strumming was the Carter scratch, and it was the closest I would get to a Gibson L-5 or L-7 like Maybelle Carter used.
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Don't know if you're aware, but there's been a reasonably-priced, all-carved "Mother Maybelle" L-5 style instrument on the market for a long time:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...bacco-sunburst
FWIW I had the opportunity to audition one many years ago at Mandolin Brothers (RIP...
) side-by-side with a genuine 1928 L-5 and, while the then 80-year-old instrument was the clear winner, the Loar LH-700 was
well within the ballpark of what it must have sounded like when it rolled off the Gibson workbench during the Prohibition era. There are,, however, a couple of caveats:
- Other than the long-discontinued Gibson '34 L-5 reissue, this is as authentic a copy as you're going to get for anywhere near the price - including the thick, chunky, hard-V 1-3/4" neck that turned out to be the dealbreaker for me, so you'll want to take this into consideration;
- I'm not sure if they've addressed the issue, but the neck geometry (extremely important for an archtop) could be somewhat iffy - if you decide to make the move have a tech who knows what he/she is doing when it comes to archtops (IME many excellent electric/flattop techs don't have a clue when it comes to making these babies sound/play their best) give it a thorough going-over, and send it back if it's not up to snuff...
That said, if you
do get a good one (and you're OK with the period-correct neck) it's as close as you'll get to taking a time machine back to the Jazz Age and buying a brand-new one on New York's 48
th Street - everything the Epi Masterbilts could/should have been from the get-go, and I wouldn't think twice about selling off the Olympic if all is well...
