The Gibson ES-335

I try not to be too self serving (as a dealer) when I write a post but sometimes I can be self serving and serve you, the readers, and nobody gets upset. I’m currently negotiating to buy an entire collection of Gibson made Epiphones. In case you are not aware, Epiphone was a big player in the guitar (and upright bass) business throughout a good bit of the twentieth century. Their archtops rivaled anything Gibson or Stromberg (another big player now gone) made during their own “Golden Era” that stretched from the 30’s to the late 50’s. An Epiphone Emperor was the equivalent of Gibson’s Super 400 and was a leader with guitarists from big bands and jazz combos. They made electric and acoustic versions. Epiphone also made round hole acoustics and upright basses. By the mid fifties, however, they were in financial trouble and Gibson saw Epiphone’s woes as a way to grab their bass business. Gibson had no products in that arena in the years before the bass guitar shrank that market. So, in 1957, Gibson bought Epiphone (and remaining inventory) for an astonishing $20,000. In today’s dollars, that’s somewhere around $225,000 which is less than I’m going to end up paying for a collection of around 12 vintage Epiphones.

Epiphone never made this guitar-they made a 3 pickup Emperor sort of like this but this is a thinline made only by Gibson by special order from 1959 until around 1965. earliest ones. had NY single coils. This 60 has mini humbuckers. It is a gorgeous instrument.

The collection consists largely of Sheratons which are the approximate Gibson-Epiphone equivalent of the ES-355. They had fancy five piece necks and fancy headstock and fingerboard inlays and multi ply bindings. Epiphone never made a semi hollow guitar. These were Gibsons through and through…almost. Gibson bought the Epiphone inventory and tools along with the name and there were pickups, necks, knobs, tuners and tailpieces that needed to be used up. So, the Gibson designed Sheraton got an Epiphone neck, pickups, knobs and tailpiece until the were gone. The “New York” pickup is a single coil that is what I call a P90 with manners. They are fairly low output and not very aggressive. They are pleasant and musical. The tailpiece was an odd invention called the frequensator that I don’t think really did anything special. I could probably write an entire post about what it was supposed to do but nobody really cares that much. The Epi pickups only lasted into 1960 and were replaced by Gibson’s own mini humbuckers which have something of a following probably due to their presence in the Les Paul Deluxe of the late 60’s and early 70’s. They can sound quite good. Other Sheratons got a Bigsby tailpiece while others got the attractive but nearly useless Trem-o-Tone. If there is a worse vibrato ever made, let me know. It makes the sideways Vibrola look like wizardry. The Epiphone knobs are called “”carousels” because that’s what they look like and they were also gone by the end of 1960.

I love early Sheratons-and by early, I mean from 59 to 62 or so. These have an absolutely spectacular deep V neck that is a joy to play. While the ES line went to the sometimes problematic “blade” necks in 60, the Gibson Epiphones were still using leftover necks made by the old Epiphone company and they are wonderful. Better than any neck on any Gibson, in my opinion. If I had the skills, I would rerout every one for a set of PAFs and drop in a stop tail and I would have a guitar to rival any dot neck. But I don’t and I’d feel bad about modding them. By sometime in 63 (I’ve actually never seen a 63 Sheraton), they got the familiar long headstock and slimmer neck that was wholly a Gibson creation. By that time, the only parts that appeared on Sheratons but never on Gibsons were the tailpieces-Frequensator and Trem-o-Tone. Everything else said Gibson.

The later Sheratons are excellent guitars but they lack that great neck. The nut stayed wide until 65 and some 66’s still have it. The depth got very slim and blade-like. Still excellent but now more like their Gibson brethren, again, with different pickups and tailpieces. The downscale Riviera arrived in 62 and was basically a 335 with mini humbuckers. Some finishes were unique as well (other than blonde). The Epiphone sunburst was called Royal Tan and was a faded cherryburst. They also made conventional sunbursts, reds and Sparkling Burgundy Rivieras. I’ve seen one blonde Riviera and no Sparkling Burgundy Sheratons. I played a 66 Riviera from 1968 until 1970-it belonged to our bass player and he often brought it to gigs for me to play because I liked it better than my 62 ES-330. I also played a solid body P90 Epiphone Wilshire during that era. I still own two Wilshires, both from 1960.

I could write a few dozen posts about Gibson made Epiphones. There are some really wonderful guitars in that line. Epi never made a solid body electric and the ones that Gibson came up with were essentially SG variants and some (like the early Wilshire) are just great. The upright bass thing never really worked out for Gibson as the bass guitar took over much of the market from the hard to transport upright bass but Gibson did come up with some really good bass guitars for the Epiphone line. The Rivoli (EB-2 equivalent) was very popular (watch Chas Chandler in an old Animals video) and the Embassy and Newport were every bit as good as the Gibson Thunderbirds if not as pretty. But by 1968, Gibson decided they didn’t need two competing lines of US made guitars and moved all of Epiphone’s manufacturing to Asia. A few leftovers were sold in 69 and 70 but that was the end of a very short era.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 at 7:16 am • Uncategorized • RSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback