I recently had an 04 LP Standard made at the Gibson China plant. (Masterbilts and Elitists, in particular). Oddly enough, some of the 'high end' imports aren't made at their own factory, or even in China. But they've had definite quality control issues there. Gibson has managed, I think, to get folks to believe they're making everything at their own factory, to 'produce them with better quality control' under Gibson USA people management. Not all import Epiphones, even after Gibson opened its Qiang Dao factory, are created equal. I could be wrong about that, but at least according to Blue Book, and at least until about 4-5 years ago, Samick and Aria were the Korean subcontractors for Epiphone. The way I understand it Aria (Japan) either sold their Korean palnt or started Peerless there as a Korean subsidiary. Then, from its serial number that even though an '05, the 'R' at the head of the s/n revealed this one to be made August '05 in Korea by Peerless (formerly the Aria factory.Īn Aria made Casino - Niiiiice!:AOK: :AOK:

He'd also gotten an SKB thermo-molded case for it. He prefers to play with a load of overdrive and distorition, and being a hollow body (not a semi-hollow like a Dot or other 335 types), he hated the Casino's propensity to feed back at high volume, so he didn't gig with it. Since Gibson opened their Gibson China factory in '03, and they'd severed ties with Samick/Korea, and the newer Chinese-build Casinos and acoustics I'd seen at a local dealer were kinda slipshod in fit & finish, I wasn't expecting much.īut when I stopped by after work to check it out, I was pleasantly surprised to find it in pristine shape. When he told me it was 'just a couple of years old', even though I've wanted one of these reissues of the guitar that McCartney bought first which then led to Lennon & Harrison getting them in '64, I was only curious.

An associate at work wanted to buy a new Fender MIM Deluxe 60's Strat and mentioned he was selling his Epi Casino.

Masterbuilt epiphone casino buy used