Old Epiphone

[Slim Pickins]

My friend has an old Epiphone Mando. It is An Epiphone Strand A style Serial number 69502 Made in Ny Ny at the Epiphone Company. Any idea on it's history. Its in great shape and very playable

[Jim Garber]

As far as I can tell from my books, it was made around 1956 or 57, right before Gibson took them over. Check out the Epiphone Book for more info than you's ever want to know about the company. They were Gibson's main competitor for archtop guitars, electrics and lap steels in the 1930s and 40s. History of the company here (http://www.epiphone.com/history.asp).

The Strand was foirst instroduced in 1932 with two points and f-holes. In various changes over the years it looks like the last change was to make it with an oval hole. Your friend's might be one of the last ones made.

It would be great to see a photo. Here is a 1944 Strand that was on eBay a few years ago.

Jim

[johnl]

Cool mandolin (I have a '45 Strand). Two-point; carved spruce top and carved walnut back. They switched from f-holes to the oval soundhole around '51. I'm curious, does the headstock have the script 'Epiphone' inlay, or the triangular metal plate logo?
-JL

[Jim Garber]

JL-
I can't own them all, so I just collect the jpegs http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Here's the headstock from that one.

Jim

[johnl]

Thanks, Jim; though I'm a little jealous of that '44 now. It's got the fancier tailpiece cover, and I like those metal tuner buttons (mine are plain white plastic). I'm also curious about the headstock on that '56 Strand. I've seen an Adelphi (I think it was on eBay), and a Rivoli that had the metal plate logo; and I wonder if that was another change the Epi folks made towards the end.
-JL

[8ch(pl)]

Bill Monroe played one for a while in his early days.

[Harry H]

Thanks, Jim; though I'm a little jealous of that '44 now. It's got the fancier tailpiece cover, and I like those metal tuner buttons (mine are plain white plastic).
-JL
That '44 is a nice mandolin!

It used to live in my home town. It was for sale at a local store
about 12 years ago, along with an Epiphone Excellente.
I bought the Excellente and turned a friend on to the Strand.
He let me borrow it when I started playing mando a short time later.

If you look closely at the pics you can see the following;
opaque yellow in the sunburst (I've seen the same finish peculiarity on '44 Epi guitars) and chrome plated tuners.
The tuners were grovers, stamped 'patent applied for' and
original to the mando. They were also 'binding' in a big way;
very hard to tune.

If I remember correctly, the back and sides were walnut.