First introduced in1961, the Casino was just one of several new thinline Archtops designed and produced at the company's adopted new factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan that it shared with one-time competitor and new partner, Gibson. C’mom now, where you gonna find another like this? And in this kind of condition? Ain't no way.Since 1961, the legendary Casino has been Epiphone's best-selling archtop and a rock 'n'roll standard. I can only surmise that this is due to its having been moved around with some over the last nearly-sixty years.

I will allow that the case, which is indeed the original hard shell, is a bit scuffed up and its handle is a replacement. We’ve of course gone over it 100% thoroughly here in our own shop and got it set up for the ends of time. And it has that wonderful, only on a ‘60s Gibson/Epiphone, oval neck contour, the comfiest of all. But wait, there's even more! So many Casinos had only one pickup this has of course got two, those hot hot early Gibson P-90s and with chrome covers too and rarer yet, it also has that wild only-on-an-Epiphone “Tremotone” vibrato tailpiece. I've even looked online at pictures of tons of 1965, and other years Casinos, and every dang one of them is a short neck version. So…….this Epiphone Casino has inexplicably got the “long neck” design, and it's the onliest one I've ever seen like that. But wait, there's more! Every Epiphone Casino I've ever seen has the neck joining the body at the 17th fret, using 1960s Gibson components from what we call the “short neck” version of the ES-330 production line, but what are considered to be the far more desirable ES-330s are what we call the “long neck” versions with the necks joining at the 19th fret, giving more playing access to the higher frets. There is close to zero fret wear because it's hardly ever been played, and only in the first position at that. it’s still 100% shiny and if you can find much more than a wee bit of almost sixty years of extremely mild finish checking, which always occurs on the kinds of lacquers used back then, I’d be mightily impressed. It is in impeccable condition and while I'm usually hesitant to use the word “mint”, this is as close as it gets. It comes to me from its original owner, who got it for a birthday present from a well-meaning relative when he was about ten or twelve years old, but the guitar turned out to bigger than he was and got put away and mostly forgotten about.

Gibson's records from those years are sketchy and incomplete and it is possible that while accepted serial number lists put this guitar squarely in 1965, it is possible that it was made sometime in 1966. This is by far the coolest, cleanest, bestest mid-1960s Epiphone Casino I’ve ever seen, ever.

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