Epiphone By Gibson Sheraton II 1988

Epiphone By Gibson Sheraton II 1988

The Epiphone by Gibson Sheraton II appeared with the ‘by Gibson’ logo for only two years or so, ending around 1988; these were built in the Samick shops in Korea and are excellent instruments.
The original Epiphone Sheraton was built from 1958 to 1970, and Gibson had purchased the remains of Epiphone 1957. Their introduction was concurrent with the launch of Gibson’s new ES-3×5 line, a revolutionary design that added a solid center block to a thin-body electric archtop. However, while the core design was very similar, the hardware choice was not. The Sheraton used older Epiphone parts, in particular ‘New York’ mini-humbuckers, and a ‘Frequensator’ two-part Trapeze tailpiece. One of the most notable players of the Epiphone Sheraton was blues great John Lee Hooker.
Here we’re looking at an Epiphone by Gibson Sheraton II, a reissue model introduced during 1986. For the first two years, including the time when this example was built, the “Epiphone by Gibson” logo was used. After that, the logo was shortened to just “Epiphone”, but the guitars are otherwise identical. One difference for the Sheraton II from the originals is the replacement of the Frequensator tailpiece with a standard stop-bar unit.
This example dates to 1988 and was built for Epiphone by Samick at their plant in Unsung, Korea. It’s in very nice shape, and plays well. The body uses laminated Maple, with Maple for the center block and, with Walnut separators, for the 5 piece neck. The bound fingerboard is likely Pau Ferro, which avoids any CITES issues around Rosewoods. Position markers are ‘Block and Triangle’ using Mother of Pearl and Abalone. The headstock has the traditional Epiphone vine inlay. Fret wear is light, and examination of them shows that the binding comes up to the end of the frets – this follows Gibson’s method of preparing, adding inlays, fretting, and binding the fingerboard before it is mounted on the neck.
The original pickups have been replaced with PAF style reproductions by Seymour Duncan The other components are original, and the gold plating has slight wear in the usual areas- primarily on the bass ends of pickups and bridge components where a palm might rest.
This Epiphone by Gibson Sheraton II is in overall good condition with only minor wear. It plays nicely, and has a solid, responsive tone.
A black hard shell case is included.