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Hi all,

I recently posted about wanting an archtop and very nearly bought oleg's eastman which I'm sure is a wonderful guitar. In the end I decided to risk buying overseas as I didn't think I would find what I was looking for in the country any time soon. I had never bought a guitar from overseas before and I've heard a lot of horror stories so it was pretty scary. This is what I ended up with.



Epiphone Apollo serial #225 dated to sometime in the 30's (probably 37). Carved spruce top, sycamore back and sides (though it looks very maple-y, could be that). A very strange epiphone, sold even cheaper than the olympics at the time and only in the UK leading some people to suggest that maybe the guitars were put together by another factory in chicago instead of the NY Epiphone factory.

Terrifyingly this guitar arrived wrapped in bubble wrap in a cardboard box. I'm very fortunate that it is still in one piece. Would love to hear more about these guitars if anyone has information. There's not a lot online about them.

Gorgeous, love that classic shape without cut aways.

That looks amazing. I bet it's got a lovely mellow tone too.

Looks fantastic. How does it play?

That's a beauty! Love the shape and finish. Yeah, very keen to hear how it plays too.

It plays even better than I hoped. I put 13-56 phosphors on it to help mellow it out more. Has a very rawlings type tone with heaps of natural reverb. You can really feel the old dry wood shaking with certain notes. I will make a recording tonight to share.

Ok. Dibs.

Congrats. Its beautiful, look forward to hearing it

Hi Nick!

That looks great, and a good combination of woods to give you the tone you are after. Congrats!

nburf wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 6:45 am It plays even better than I hoped. I put 13-56 phosphors on it to help mellow it out more. Has a very rawlings type tone with heaps of natural reverb. You can really feel the old dry wood shaking with certain notes. I will make a recording tonight to share.

Can't wait to hear it! Looks and I imagine sounds fantastic. Risk looks like it paid off!

Thanks for the replies guys! Sorry for leaving you hanging with a recording. My shitty tascam interface has decided to start skipping on me and I can't seem to fix it but I have a SSL2+ which should be here tomorrow.

Here's a sample.

https://soundcloud.com/nick-burfield/guitarsample

After listening to it back through a clean recording its a lot mellower than rawlings olympic. That's kinda what I was aiming for with phosphor strings and a slightly bigger lower bout because it's the only guitar in the group I play with. It really sounds like there's reverb on the track but I promise you it's dry haha.

Beautiful playing and gorgeous tone! You must be stoked with that purchase. That guitar ticks all the boxes for me.

codedog wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 12:26 pm Beautiful playing and gorgeous tone! You must be stoked with that purchase. That guitar ticks all the boxes for me.

Cheers yeah I'm real happy with it especially considering not hearing it before purchase.