1964 Epiphone Excellente (Sonny James Prototype?) w/ OHSC

A 1960s Epiphone Excellente will get any collector's heart pounding with excitement, but this just might be the holy grail of holy grails...a one-off prototype made for legendary Nashville singer/songwriter Sonny James. What leads us to believe that is the following article in Vintage Guitar magazine:



Specifically this part:

James’ request was simple, if not easy.

“Basically I wanted a guitar like the Martin, something that looked like it and sounded like it,” he explains. He told the Gibson people, “If I could get something just like it, that looked like it, then there’s a possibility we could work something out.”

As they further discussed the proposed Southern Gentleman, James got down to specifics. “I said, ‘Well, of course I’m interested in the acoustic sound, as good as possible, with nothing hurting it. You know that Martin’s known for their rosewood, and also the bridge, you’ll notice on my Martin, I’d like the bridge to be that way.

“They said, ‘We could make a guitar that’s shaped like your Martin, even to the pickguard.’ I made that an issue. You remember the jumbo Gibsons [the J-200]? They had that great big pickguard. I always thought anything on there that you could eliminate would give you more of an acoustical sound. That just made sense. The pickguard, instead of the usual Gibson pickguard that’s embedded into the guitar, I said, ‘Is there some way you could just make a small, thin something to protect the wood but at the same time it wouldn’t hurt the sound?’
“They said, ‘We can eliminate having a heavy pickguard. We can make something that can stick on.’

“I said, ‘That’s great, something to protect the wood. Make it as thin as possible.’”

Coincidentally, Gibson had a Martin-style guitar just about ready to introduce in the Epiphone line. The Excellente, with design elements courtesy of Gibson clinician Andy Nelson, was basically a D-28 – a square-shouldered dreadnought with Brazilian rosewood back and sides – with a fancy bridge and pickguard. Gibson pulled #68069 out of the first batch of Excellentes and fitted it (as James requested) with a belly bridge (though mounted in the typical Gibson “reverse-belly” configuration) and a plain white pickguard. They sent it off to James in Nashville.

So if Sonny James' Excellente is serial #68069, this is the one made immediately before it...on the same day in fact. We believe this Excellente was the prototype for Sonny James' guitar. It has all the Martin features he requested, and it was absolutely made that way from the factory. We've been lucky enough to sell a couple Excellentes...this has the exact same one-piece spruce top, same top bracing, same bridge plate, etc.

It makes sense that Gibson sent James a guitar with a white pickguard and reverse belly bridge...if he was going to be promoting Epiphone, a guitar with Martin features might confuse buyers. And Gibson probably didn't want to infringe on Martin's look. So we believe Gibson made this one first and sent the slightly different one to Sonny James.

Unfortunately we don't know where the story goes after that -- the previous owner sold this to a Guitar Center in Kansas. But regardless of the historical importance, this is an incredible-sounding and playing Brazilian Rosewood dreadnaught. It has a perfect neck angle with extremely low action and tons of saddle life left (see photo). It has one tight, cleated back crack and what looks to be a tiny rosewood patch on the side, but the whole guitar blacklights without any issues so it may have had that when assembled.  It has a 1 5/8" nut width. Includes its original gray, blue-lined Epiphone case. Very special guitar here and you will be blown away with how it plays and sounds.