epiphone coronet

[jeffreylucky1]

I have a cherry Coronet w a p90 in cherry finish. Batwing headstock, all original ser# 553xxx. I know it is 60's but what year? No breaks or repairs. Fair cosmetic shape. Thinking about selling.

[jeffreylucky1]

The pots date to the 26th week of 1965. I have it disassembled for cleaning but will post pics when I get it back together. It was made in the Kalamazoo Gibson factory and is very lightweight mahogany. The pickguard has no cracks.

[Spud1950]

Your Coronet is known as a 3rd generation version,made from 1963-1969.As to it's production date,here's some info on Epiphone serial numbers.





Scroll down to "Gibson-made Serial Number, 1961 to 1969, all instruments (non "A" series)". As you'll read in the header,there was some weird stuff going on with the serial numbers of that time period. Very confusing.

Unfortunately, the "553" in your number doesn't fit into any of the listed year ranges. You can also try this site. Be sure to put in all the relevant info.



If you don't get an exact year, then the pot code will have to suffice as the production year. Not sure what the value is. You have dig around the net and see if you can find asking prices on any for sale or prices on some that have been sold. Best way to gage value is to try to find what people are actually paying in the real world at the present time rather then what it says in some blue book. I'll look around and see if I can find anything. If I find anything relevant,I'll post it.

Edit- Couldn't find any actual selling prices,but here's some listed for sale.

There's a few of them on this site. These are vibrato equipped,so if yours doesn't have one,the value would be less. Also,you have to compare the conditon of yours.


Here's another one,a hard tail.

[jeffreylucky1]

Thanks Spud. I was finding the same thing with the serial numbers. It seems mine isn't listed. I am assuming it is a 65-66. I have also seen the asking prices on some of these but I wonder if any sell for those amounts? Most of the completed sales I've seen are $2500 or so for really nice specimen and $1000 or so for beaters. This guitar has a vibrato system, but no arm. There is a large screw and spring that appear factory. I'm not sure if some came with that in place of the arm. This guitar is more original than most and doesn't have any mods that would hurt the value, but it is also missing more finish than most examples. It is a nice player.

[Spud1950]

It definately would have originally had an arm from the factory.Someone at sometime removed it and it got lost. They left the arm bolt on. Not uncommon as a lot of people never use a trem so they remove the arms. The spring,which is original to the trem design, needs to be there even without the arm. It is needed to maintain the correct string angle between the vibrato and bridge so that the strings will seat correctly on the bridge saddles. You can buy replacement arms for those, but your replacing it isn't really going to add any significant value,so save your money and leave it to the buyer get one if they want to use the vibrato. I can't find any prices on any that have actually sold,only what people ask for them. All you can do is to compare yours to the ones you see for sale and come up with what you think is a fair asking price for it's condition compared to what you see. In the real world, the value is only going to be what people offer you compared to what you're asking for it.

[jeffreylucky1]

I'm starting to fall in love....I think I'll keep it!

[Spud1950]

It's a cool guitar. Only one pickup,but those 1960's Gibson P90's are sweet pickups,way better sounding then the current ones. Have fun with it!