1964 Epiphone Casino Iced Tea Sunburst Gibson-made ES-330

Up for sale is this very lovely and fabulous sounding 1964 Epiphone casino.

If you are located in the USA and state sales tax is an issue for you, please contact me prior to purchasing for instructions on how to not be assessed sales tax on reverb at the time of purchase.

The Casino is most well-known for its use by the three guitar playing members of the Beatles. John, Paul, and George all acquired casinos at roughly the same time and used throughout the course of their career as a group. John Lennon, of course, made the most extensive use of even his solo career.

This is a very clean and lovely example with mostly original parts and hardware (sans the pickguard and bracket, along with the bridge). The electronics, tailpiece, tuners and many other valuable parts are original. It has had some repair work in the past which we will address below.

1960s Epiphones were constructed using the same parts and basic specs as Gibson guitars. They were, in fact, built at the same Kalamazoo factory that gave birth to all their Gibson cousins.

This guitar features a wider 1.65 inch nut width. That’s well within the margin of error that you you see on three 1965 “wide neck“ Gibsons. We typically ballpark that at 1 and 11/16th, but you will see some variances slightly above and below that because all the necks were hand crafted. It seems that the Epiphone models made the transition to the narrower neck sooner than their Gibson counterparts. But this one is squarely in the wide neck territory.

The body finish is still very nice and clean.

Its sounds lovely, is loud and resonant unplugged, and is everything you would expect from an early 60s Gibson made guitar.

So what about the repair work on this guitar?

It’s clear from what I can see that this guitar had a neck reset which also involved a partial rebuild of that part of the instrument. I do not know the detailed repair history, but what I can discern is as follows. The fretboard and binding, fret board inlays, and headstock inlays seem to be original. But the rest of the wood on the neck has either been replaced or reconstructed. The work was extremely well done by a very gifted luthier. It is, for the most part, very close to the profile and specs of a genuine 1960s casino neck with some minor differences. There is no serial number stamp visible on the back of the headstock, although it is clearly visible in the fully intact label in the sound hall. Serial number is 17412X.

With retail prices on original 1964 casinos around 6500 bucks, this one has been discounted to reflect the work done on the neck.

Essentially, I’m pricing this at the value of the parts on the guitar if I sold them separately. I am not a fan of parting out guitars, although there are a few instances where it makes more sense to “donate” the organs to other “living” examples to make them more whole. My emphasis is much more on restoration, which prizes making guitars more complete and playable in spite of their history. I am hoping I can find someone who appreciates the process of repair and restoration as do I.

The guitar comes housed in its original case. Its in similar condition to the guitar and is fully functional. There is one minor area of damage on the side near the center latch area where it looks like it got knocked, but this does not effect it full functionality.

I am included an era correct Epiphone hang tag. Its in rough shape and has had the model and serial originally on it erased. But its a nice piece of case candy nonetheless.