Epiphone Coronet, Sunset Yellow (1969)

Epiphone's Coronet model has its roots planted firmly in the company's rich and storied history dating back decades prior to the solidbody variant that was settled on in 1958. A Coronet in the 1930s would identify as one of the company's lap steels, and would change again to a small body archtop in 1941. After Gibson acquired Epiphone in 1957, however, the Coronet name would take on an entirely different model and style of instrument, just like the one you see before you. While the Coronet model followed the Gibson lineage to some degree, it veered in another direction when it came time for custom color treatment. Epiphone introduced three new custom colors in 1965 to compete with the bright and vibrant colorways Fender was using during the same time period. Pacific Blue, California Coral, and Sunset Yellow could be found wrapping Coronets, Newports, and Wilshires alike. The latter is what you see here - a wonderful and rare Coronet built in 1969 with a factory Sunset Yellow finish.

This is the first-ever custom color Epiphone that's been in our shop, and we hope it's not our last. These are definitely an off-the-radar Kalamazoo sleeper!

A light and resonant guitar at its core, this Coronet has the same sort of liveliness and dynamic response all great Junior-style guitars seem to possess. Bright and punchy, with top end clarity that'll hang with you through the entire travel on the volume pot. Lots of great tonal shades are available with a slight tweak of the volume and tone knobs, and nothing to get in the way of a truly excellent playing experience.

We've got this one dialed in, feeling and playing exceptionally well thanks to a great refret done in-house by Glenn Nichols. The guitar's neck was also reset due to some separation in the pocket after decades of sitting in a case under tension. Glenn also did some touch-up around the heel - no small feat with a rare custom color like this! Once bearing a Badass bridge, it is now outfitted with a MojoAxe CWT-60 wraparound bridge. The original Maestro "horseshoe" vibrola tailpiece remains, but we've elected to string it up with the wraparound for a truer "Junior" playing experience.

Super easy playing and with an off-the-charts cool factor to boot, this 1969 Epiphone Coronet is a special one!