Epiphone 61 Casino Reissue
Royal Tan with Trapeze Tailpiece
Nashville, TN
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the first Casino, Epiphone has created the limited-edition 1961 Anniversary Casino, which has many features that were discontinued after the original Casino’s first year of production. Only 1,961 Anniversary Casinos have been produced, each with a numbered certificate of authenticity.
(June 14, 2011) -- Epiphone is bringing back the first Casino in celebration of it's 50th anniversary - the '1961' Casino. Introduced in 1961, the original Casino had unique features that ultimately were never offered beyond that first year. These include the pre-Gibson era triangle metal logo badge on the headstock, 'Dot' fingerboard inlays, a blank two-ply 'bullet' truss rod cover, a tortoise-colored pickguard with foil 'E', and black dog-ear P-90 pickups. Epiphone has faithfully reproduced these features for a one-of-a-kind retro look not found on Casinos produced after 1961. Other attention to detail includes the correct 'burst' patterns on front and back, a neck joint at the 16th fret (instead of the 17th), Wilkinson Vintage-Style tuners with white buttons, and the historically accurate rectangle 'blue label' inside the sound hole.Epiphone Casino 61 Reissue For Sale
- Original Collection. The Golden Era returns with the Original Collection. Paying tribute to our iconic past, the Original Collection brings back the classic guitars that shaped sound across all generations and genres of music.
- The Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary 1961 Reissue: My guitar is number 1549 in the series of 1961 units ever made of this particular model. I bought one in a sunburst with the tremotone vibrato system. It is a limited edition from 2011 made in the event of the Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary.
- Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary with Gibson P90 pickups. Excellent condition, never gigged and has been setup to have a great low action. Comes with hard case, numbered certificate and removed scratc.
Vintage Sunburst with Trapeze Tailpiece
Since the original Casinos incorporated parts and electronics from the Gibson factory, the 1961 Anniversary Casino has followed the same philosophy. Epiphone has recreated the original black P90s using a Gibson USA P-90R dog-ear pickup for rhythm and a Gibson USA P-90T at the bridge. They also feature vintage two-conductor, braided, shielded wiring and black plastic covers. Other electronics faithful to the original Casino include a Switchcraft 3-way toggle and 1/4' output jack.
Epiphone 1961 Casino Reissue For Sale
The body is made of 5-layer Maple/Birch with a solid Mahogany SlimTaper neck attached using the traditional mortise and tenon neck joint hand-fitted and glued to the body using TiteBond glue. Hardware includes a tune-o-matic bridge and your choice of either a Trapeze tailpiece or Epiphone's new reissue of the original Tremotone vibrato. Epiphone is only making a total of 1,961 Anniversary Casinos.Vintage Sunburst with Tremotone
Specs:
- 5-layer Maple/Birch body with correct 'burst' patterns on front and back
- Mahogany neck with SlimTaper profile
- Gibson USA P-90R dog-ear rhythm and Gibson USA P-90T bridge pickups
- Locktone Tune-o-matic bridge with Trapeze tailpiece or Epiphone's new reissue of the original Tremotone vibrato
- Wilkinson Vintage-Style tuners
- MSRP: $1332 (Royal Tan with Trapeze Tailpiece), $1332 (Vintage Sunburst with Trapeze Tailpiece), $1415 (Vintage Sunburst with Tremotone)
For more information:
Gibson
Source: Gibson's website
The Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary 1961 Reissue:
My guitar is number 1549 in the series of 1961 units ever made of this particular model. I bought one in a sunburst with the tremotone vibrato system. It is a limited edition from 2011 made in the event of the Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary. I bought it second hand in the US and had it shipped to where I live last year. It is in mint condition except for a small ding at the back of the headstock.
I really like this guitar. First off, some of the specifications. It sports a 5-layer maple/birch body with a mahogany neck which is glued on at the 16th fret. It has 22 medium jumbo rosewood frets with pearloid dot-inlays and it also has a set of Wilkinson Deluxe machine-heads.
I prefer the Gibson variety of the so-called “slim-taper” neck. This particular model has the signature chunky Epiphone neck – however, for an Epiphone it feels very nice. The frets are nice and level with just about perfect action and feel thanks to a good setup, courtesy of Mr. Andy Halliday. One of the first features one usually notices with the guitar is the tremotone vibrato and the unusual headstock. The headstock is of the “open book” style and sports a metal logo plate pictured along with the rest of the guitar on the upper picture.
To me, visually everything is just about perfect except for one thing and that is the dot-inlays – but I don’t really mind. The original guitar had dot-inlays so it’s no problem. The metal logo plate however, wasn’t on the original. I think it looks awesome but I’m into that retro look. The logo is really more of a tribute to the older Epiphone models from the 30’s and 40’s before Gibson put them under their wing.
The guitar sports American dog-ear P90 Pickups and sounds terrific. The guitar is perfect for Blues, Jazz (Grant Green with his ES-330 comes to mind), Alt Rock and just plain Rock music. The completely hollow body and the hot pickups do become problematic when shooting for that Metal sound so it’s definitely not an axe for heavy duty in that field – I find however that it’s a great guitar for playing with feedback so it depends on what you’re into. The finish doesn’t look cheap but it’s very high-gloss. It was either that or a faded one in this price-range so you can’t really beat that! A chinese guitar from 2011 just doesn’t have the same feel as a 50 year old guitar with a naturally faded and cracked finish.
The Tremotone is a tremolo in the style of a Bigsby and is surprisingly stable. It’s great for a slight, subtle vibrato but not a good system for divebombs and the likes – wouldn’t want to break anything, eh?
This guitar feels exclusive considering the pricetag (I believe it goes for about 800 bucks on ebay now). It has great tone when plugged in – courtesy of the American hardware – and has a pleasant, warm tone when unplugged. A fine instrument.
Epiphone 61 Reissue Casino
– Andreas