One of the very First Epiphone Sheratons with Mini Humbuckers

1961 Epiphone Sheraton E212T

This January 1961, 16-inch-wide thinline guitar weighs just 8.20 lbs. and has a wonderful thick neck profile, a fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Laminated maple body with maple central block, five-piece mahogany/walnut/maple/walnut/mahogany neck, and brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 original medium jumbo (0.08) frets and inlaid pearl block position markers with v-shaped abalone inserts. The body has seven-ply binding on the top and three-ply on the back. The neck is single-bound (white), the fretboard has double white binding on each side, and the headstock is triple-bound. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Epiphone" script logo and pearl "Vine of Life" inlay. Individual Grover Roto-Matic tuners with half-moon metal buttons. Two Epiphone mini-humbucker pickups with outputs of 6.86k and 6.89k. Tortoiseshell pickguard with five-layer (white/black/white/black/white) plastic binding and with large Epiphone stylized "E" in silver. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Gold plastic bell-shaped knobs with metal tops. 'Old-style' brass pin control knob markers. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic 'non-retainer' bridge  and Epiphone 'Frequensator' tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated. Inside the bass f-hole is the Epiphone (Kalamazoo, Michigan) rectangular blue label with "Sheraton" and "E212" typed in black and after that "-T" in black ink, and then the serial number ("2884") stamped in black. The batch number ("Y 8059 412") is stamped in dark blue inside the treble f-hole. This fabulous guitar is in near mint and totally original 9.25+ condition, with only some very minor finish checking on the back and one on the back of the neck. There is virtually no wear to the original frets nor  to the brazilian rosewood fretboard.  Housed in its original Epiphone five-latch tan tweed hard-shell case with dark-blue plush lining (9.00).

When introduced in 1958 the Sheraton was fitted with two single-coil New York pickups. In early 1961 these were replaced with 'mini humbuckers'. It is unusual to find such an all-original, near mint early example of an Epiphone Sheraton.

Gibson made Mini-Humbucking Pickups: These were used on Gibson models like the 1969 Les Paul Deluxe, smaller than the Gibson standard humbucking pickup, 1 1/8" by 2 5/8", double coil, rectangular metal covered, slot head screw poles close to edge, black plastic frame, similar in size to the New York style pickup: 1961 to 1969.

"The Sheraton was the only Epi hollowbody of 1958 with a model name that had not been previously used. It was also the only double-cutaway semi-hollowbody. Its fancy inlay and multiple bindings make it equivalent to Gibson's top semi-hollow model, the ES-355, but, of course, the pickups are different" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses, p. 216).

"The Sheraton had no history whatsoever as an Epiphone, except for its Epi neck and pickups. Otherwise it was constructed essentially the same as Gibson's ES-335. The Epi version outdid its Gibson counterpart in the area of ornamentation, however, with such features as Emperor-style V-block fingerboard inlays and vine inlay on the peghead" (Walter Carter, Epiphone: The Complete History, p. 59).

Frequensator tailpiece: allows for a longer string length on the 3 bass strings, shorter string length on the 3 treble strings, sometimes reversed by players to accommodate short strings, high end models: 1939-1970.

The Epiphone Vibrato unit was fitted as standard from 1961 (Walter Carter. The Epiphone Guitar Book. p. 159).