Rare 1963 Epiphone Olympic

This featherweight guitar weighs in at just 5.60 lbs. Full size asymetrical double cutaway mahogany body with a thickness of 1 3/8 inches. One-piece mahogany neck with a nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches and a wonderful medium neck profile. Rosewood fretboard with 22 medium frets and pearl dot position markers. Three-in-a-row Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic buttons. One Gibson Melody Maker thin black style pickup with a nice hot 7.29k output. Single-layer white plastic pickguard with eight screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone), and jack socket, all on pickguard. Black plastic ribbed-sided knobs with metal tops with red markings. The pots are dated "137 6336" (CTS September 1963) and "134 6341" (Centralab October 1963). Combination ridged "wrap-over" bar bridge/stud tailpiece. This is a superb exceptionally fine (9.00), unfaded, and totally original example of this extremely "rare bird." Housed in its original gray and black softshell case with blue felt lining (8.00). The only example we have ever seen!

This version of the Olympic with the asymetrical double cutaway body, the upper bass horn slightly longer than the treble horn and the 3 + 3 tuner configuration was introduced in 1963… by 1964 the tuner configuration had been changed to the six on one side "Batwing" style. More importantly with the "Batwing" style headstock came the much narrower 1 9/16 nut width. Until that point the neck on the Olympic could be somewhat compared to an SG Junior…