But 11/10/11 (aka 10 Nov 2011) was pretty cool. First, me and JB both took delivery of new-to-us Casinos. That was pretty neat. The texts were flying fast and furious between NYC and DC last night. I felt like we were friends whose wives had kids on the same day, reporting to each other from either hospital!
Second, I scored something pretty interesting. This is quite a neat little story.
So I'm scanning the 'bay for Casinos (a typical busy workday) and come across something a little different:
- Epi TR1.jpg (6.43 KiB) Viewed 3417 times
The description says it's an Epiphone Hollow Body. Okay... model? "Terry Rogers" signature edition. Apparently like a Casino or 330, but with a center block a la 335. P-90's look good... but wait! What's this?
- Epi TR3.jpg (5.82 KiB) Viewed 3417 times
I googled a little, and found the seller's craigslist ad for the same item:
This is an Epiphone Terry Rogers Model. Guitar is brand new still has plastic covers on pickups not a scratch or nickanywhere. This guitar has the parallalagram inlays and the P-90 pickups like the Casino but it is a sei-hollow body likethe ES335. Terry Rogers Signiture and logo on back of headstock. Sorry no case. PH 239-634-0972. I do not respondto e-mails.
Since a google search yielded nada, I took to searching for who the heck this Terry Rogers character is. Turns out, he's a player/builder from Tennessee, best I can gather, who has obviously spent considerable time in Asia. Search for his youtube channel. There is a Mt. Fuji video of him that includes footage from a Japanese trade show.
I shoot a message off to our own Werner, who does a quick search of his resources and gets squat. We both agree the logo, headstock, f-hole placement, and lack of label or serial (confirmed by seller) are fishy. No surprise at this point, given Mr. Rogers
is probably not exactly signature edition-worthy, even if he is a great player and builder.I communicate with the seller and let him know I'm not finding much on this "model," and would he tell me a little more about it?
He replies quickly and kindly from my good old home state of Florida. The color is a barely-translucent cream color. The action is low, the neck is straight. Additional pics he sends me confirm this, one of which being a specific shot that verifies "proof of life" for me.
He told me a friend of his was visiting China, so he asked this friend to pick him up a Casino while he was there, since he collects Beatles guitars. The friend came back with this. The friend was visiting Qingdao, China, where the Epiphone factory is located.
As usual, my imagination runs away with me, and I speculate that Terry may have built this one-off with the intention of pitching it to the factory (either Gibson in his home state of Tennessee, or Epi in Qingdao, less likely), was denied, and unloaded it on one of his trips to Asia.
I post on the Gibson/Epiphone Electrics forum. Most agree it's no Epi. I hit the BIN. The listing is removed minutes later.
And then this morning, after some more discussion, the Gib/Epi forum thread is removed. Turns out people there get riled up just like the Rickheads do here.
Full report once it's in my hands...
To be continued...
Discuss.
