Epiphone Casino
Dan Orkin of Reverb.com tackles the tricky job of valuing rare, vintage custom-colour Casinos as well as the more commonly encountered sunburst versions
Although Gibson-branded guitars tend to earn more on the vintage market. The Casino, introduced in 1961, is the exception to this and continues to rank as one of the most sought-after vintage Epiphone guitars across the board, largely due to its close connection to The Beatles. But the cult of the Casino goes beyond the Fab Four. The early 60s Casinos are actually more associated with Keith Richards, while more recently, it’s been embraced by players like Noel Gallagher, Jeff Tweedy and Dwight Yoakam. It all gives the Casino a place as a perennially popular vintage and modern guitar that’s commonly desired by experienced collectors and novice players alike.
From Blue To ‘Burst
Typically when we discuss vintage guitar pricing, we have at least a few historical sales from the Reverb database we can review to establish market value. However, the Pelham Blue Casino on the page 137 is so exceedingly rare that we have never even seen one listed, let alone sold. With such rarities, the best bet is to find broadly similar instruments and do informed guesswork.
As far as vintage Casinos go, the going rate for a 1966 model year in a standard finish like Sunburst falls somewhere between £2,200 and £3,000. For the somewhat more coveted early 60s examples, we’ve seen recent sales in the US exceed $7,000 for a couple of exceptionally pristine guitars.
Another telling benchmark comes from looking at similar Gibson guitars with the coveted Pelham finish. We’ve seen, for example, a handful of Pelham Trini Lopez models listed in recent years, which are selling for between $15,000 and $20,000 in the States. Notably, these guitars have been given new life as a Dave Grohl signature Gibson, which may inflate the prices beyond what you’d find for other Gibson semi-hollow bodies with the same finish.
With all the above in mind, it’d be safe to predict that if a Pelham Casino from 1966 came to market today, the market price would probably be £7,000 to £13,000. As always, however, with guitars this exceptionally rare, pricing is always done on a case-by-case basis, and a particularly fine example could sell for even higher.
Other Buying Options
Production of the original Casino ended in 1970 but came back into the fold under the renewed, Asian-manufactured Epiphone brand in the 1990s. Since then, Epiphone has produced a massive array of Casino models, including some under their Elitist series, which rival the original in terms of build quality. There have also been some choice artist signature variations like Noel Gallagher’s Union Jack model and Gary Clark Jr’s stylish ‘Blak & Blu’ finish.
There’s also the aforementioned Gibson ES-330 in its various forms, though those have only seldomly been reissued by Gibson. If you’re just looking for an intriguing hollow or semi-hollow guitar, you can investigate options from D’Angelico, Hagstrom, and Ibanez’ Artcore line, just to name a few.