Ultra Rare Factory "Stop-Tail" Crestwood Custom

This super featherweight guitar weighs just 6.10 lbs., with a very comfortable nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. The body and neck are solid mahogany and the fretboard is rosewood with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Epiphone" script logo. Individual Kluson Deluxe tuners with single-ring Keystone plastic buttons. Two mini-humbucking pickups with black plastic surrounds and outputs of 7.45K and 6.77k. The pickups are set in the original three-layer (white/black/white) plastic "batwing" pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch and jack socket. Gold plastic bell-shaped knobs with metal tops. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge with nylon saddles and stop tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated. This guitar is totally original and is in near mint condition, with only a few tiny marks (nothing through the surface). The gold plating is a little bit tarnished on the pickups and on the stop tail. Housed in its original Epiphone deluxe dark gray hardshell case with dark blue plush lining (9.00). This is an exceptionally rare and "no excuses" guitar -- it is one of only two factory "stop-tail" Crestwood Customs we've ever seen.

Introduced in 1958 (with two New York pickups), and then from 1959 with two mini-humbucking pickups, the $265.00 Crestwood Custom was Epiphone's two pickup equivalent of the $365.00 Gibson Les Paul SG Custom and was produced with this body and headstock shape only until early 1963. Gibson made 811 Les Paul SG Customs in 1961 and 1962, but the exact number of Crestwood Customs produced by Gibson during the same period is unknown. What we do know is that there were far fewer Crestwood Customs made, and this is the first example we have seen. Many players find the three pickup layout of the Gibson Custom rather awkward to play, and so the Epiphone Crestwood Custom, with its identical weight, body measurements, and nut width, is considered by the "ones that know" to be the natural answer.