Super Rare Mid-Sixties Burgundy Mist Epiphone Casino

This super lightweight 16-inch-wide guitar weighs just 6.10 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 9/16 inches and a scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Single-bound laminated maple top, back, and sides, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl single-parallelogram position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Epiphone" script logo. Individual dual-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons. Serial number ("051888") stamped in black on the back of the headstock. (The serial number is also on a rectangular blue label inside bass f-hole.) Two chrome-covered P-90 pickups with thumping great 7.50k and 7.72k outputs. Four-layer (white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard with bevelled edge and silver and black Epiphone stylized "E" logo. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on the lower treble bout. Black plastic ribbed-sided conical-shaped "Witch Hat" knobs with metal tops. Trapeze tailpiece with raised diamond on cross-bar and Tune-O-Matic retainer bridge with metal saddles. This totally unfaded custom-color guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition, with a minimal amount of belt buckle scarring on the back, some finish checking, a small surface chip (measuring 1/2 x 1/4 inch) on the back of the guitar, another small surface mark (approximately 1/8 inch square) on the top of the guitar, a small indentation in the back of the neck behind the seventh fret, some wear to the edge of the headstock, and a few other minor marks. Housed in its original gray hardshell case with royal blue plush lining (9.00).

Introduced in 1961, the Casino was Epiphone's $335.00 version of the highly popular Gibson ES-330. It was discontinued in 1970. B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Hendrix (while playing with the Isley Brothers) were all playing Epiphone Casinos. Near the end of 1964, Epiphone scored an unexpected coup when the Beatles bought three Casinos -- one each for George Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney. All three Casinos were Sunburst, and George's had a Bigsby vibrola tailpiece. McCartney put his on record almost immediately, playing the guitar fills on the group's 1965 hit "Ticket to Ride" on his Casino. Fans around the world saw the Casinos on the Beatles' s world tour of 1966. The group used them on various recordings and promotional films.

"The Casino, introduced in 1961, is the equivalent of the Gibson ES-330 -- a fully hollow thinbody guitar with one or two P-90 pickups. The dot inlay gave way to parallelograms by 1963. The Epiphone vibrato, featuring a string-anchor bar of varying diameter to compensate for different string gauges, was never used on a Gibson-brand model" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History, p. 220).

"Popularity of the [Epiphone] thinlines increased in the 1960s when first Paul McCartney acquired a Casino for Beatle studio work, followed by John Lennon and George Harrison who each used new Casinos on-stage in the final fab-four concerts of 1966. The group's new Epis were also all over the band's latest Reolver LP, and the Beatle connection has ensured that the Epiphone thinlines in general and the Casino model in particular enjoy a continuing popularity among pop groups who find themselves keen on reactivating a Merseyside-style mix" (Tony Bacon, Electric Guitars: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, p. 55).