everythingSG.com

 

In 1957 Gibson purchased New York's Epiphone Guitar Company and moved production to Kalamazoo, Michigan. With plans to expand retail distribution by differentiating Epiphone dealers from Gibson dealers, Gibson began production of a new line of "Kalamazoo-made and designed" Epiphones in 1959. For over a decade, Epiphone solid body guitars and basses were produced right alongside Gibsons. These Epiphone guitars represented some of the highest quality and best sounding instruments of their generation. They provided unique shapes, pickup arrangements, and tonal signatures not seen on comparable Gibson models of the day. Under appreciated at the time of their release, numerous artists through the years have recognized the unique appeal of these guitars. Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Paul Gilbert and Steve Marriot are but a few of the artists that have embraced the tone and build quality of these Kalamazoo built Epiphones. One such Epiphone instrument was the Wilshire.

 

It was the usual routine for 8:00 at my place, supper had been eaten, dishes were clean and put away, fire was going, and now it was time to sit down at the computer and let the endless digital information of guitars and AC/DC wash over me. I started at my usual forums, ACDC.com and everythingSG.com, nothing exciting had been posted on either so I go on over to Gibson.com.

I had not been on the Gibson site for a while.  I find they don’t update their pages often enough to justify it more than once or twice a month. But this time I realized I may have left it too long.  As soon as the Gibson front page comes up there is a picture of a very well known instrument to me, right down to bitter details.

I don’t know why, but I kind of space out for a minute trying to figure out why this epic guitar is splattered all over there page like Cancer Warning's on my grandma's cigarette packs. I figured they must have an article or something of that liking on it. I click the link and to my surprise I am taken to a glorious page describing each highly detailed piece. It still hasn’t set in that this guitar is for sale.

I spent quite a few minutes reading down the page, and then my brain finally kicks on. Is this damn thing for sale or what?! I scroll up working my way to the top of the page until I am greeted with a dollar sign. A BIG dollar sign! A $6100 dollar sign. Puke!

Despite the enormous price tag I figured a way to come up with the dough and now I just needed to find one to purchase (and hopefully with a nice low number). Here is the purchasing experience I had to get my dream guitar in my hands.

 

Epiphone's new SG-Express captures the look, sound and feel of their famous SG's but in a slightly smaller package that's perfect for younger players or for travel use. The neck has the same basic dimensions as a full-size guitar but the scale length is only 22.0" as compared to 24.75" on a full-size SG. The result is a guitar that's more comfortable to play - especially for smaller players - while still maintaining good string tension when tuned to standard "E".