A Wonderful Pre-War Epiphone Broadway

This 17 3/8-inch-wide acoustic archtop guitar weighs 5.50 lbs. and has a wonderful V-shaped neck with a very fat nut width of nearly 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Two-piece carved spruce top with two f-holes, walnut back and sides, five-piece mahogany neck with two center strips, and single-bound rosewood fretboard with 20 frets and inlaid pearl block position markers. Single-bound asymmetrical headstock (with dip on treble side) with inlaid pearl "Epiphone" script logo and "vine" inlay. Individual Grover open-back tuners with cloverleaf metal buttons. Single-bound tortoiseshell pickguard. Rosewood bridge with rosewood base and Epiphone Frequensator tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated (the gilt is a little bit tarnished). The serial number ("13648") is on a white label inside the bass f-hole. This wonderful New York Epiphone is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. There has been a neat repair to the Frequensator tailpiece. The pickguard has crystallized and two small portions of the white binding have come away. There is some wear on the back of the neck, a few small marks, and some body checking. Housed in the original Epiphone black hardshell case with purple plush lining (8.00).

"The Broadway was the same size as the De Luxe, but its back and sides were of walnut -- an unusual choice of wood. Walnut had been Orville Gibson's choice of wood when he made the first carved-top and carved-back mandolins and guitars, anda the Gibson company's earliest offerings had been of walnut, but no high-quality guitars had been made of walnut in a quarter century. The Broadway had four-point stars for fingerboard inlay. It was not quite as deluxe as the De Luxe, but it still had the fancy Masterbilt peghead" (Walter Carter, Epiphone: The Complete History, pp. 23-25).