"Imperial" 1930's Emperor Reissue acoustic archtop

[pcm]

Well I finally found and got it: Epiphone ‘30s Emperor Reissue (“Imperial” line/ manufactured 1992) acoustic archtop arrived this week. After searching many years for one of these I had given up - research showed low production numbers and no one I had talked to had ever seen one. On one of my daily visits to << archtop.com >> I was surprised to see one listed on their “arriving soon” list. Lucky timing secured the purchase. (Many thanks to Joe Vinikov and crew at << archtop.com >> for the dedication and time they put into finding and making available great guitars - especially the vintage Epiphones.) This guitar is without a doubt the best instrument I now own and my favorite to play. Not only does it look like it was made yesterday (In his description Joe described it as being in “unplayed condition” - and it is!) but the workmanship and attention to detail are fantastic - “Custom Shop” all the way. Wood: Solid 2 piece top/back, nice flame sides and back. 7 ply neck with pearl/ abalone inlays. Action/ playability is excellent with really nicely done fretwork. Sounds great - this is one acoustic archtop that excels when it comes to “lead” work - loud and well defined notes without having to “work at it”- a lot of acoustic archtops, especially older “vintage” ones, were designed/ optimized for rhythm work and project best when strummed hard. Not so with this one - its got modern day playability/ responsiveness wrapped up in a vintage look! I’ll post pictures after the weekend.
Some questions:
1) Any other lucky owners of this great instrument out there?
2) Any body have any factual info on actual production numbers? (I’ve got the Carter book, but that’s not exactly clear on this point).
3) Any other info on this model that can be provided - I like to keep a “history” of my instruments when possible - would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks. - Paul

[badjazz]

I've got one of these, too. The only one that I'd ever seen. It is a great guitar, and a deal, too. The guy whose store I bought it from told me that these were made by some small Japanese custom shop that Gibson bought out in the early 90's. He said that he was trying at the time to get his hands on as many as possible, as he couldn't keep them in the store, but the shop had extremely low output of these. Anyway, I don't know why anybody would by one of those $10,000 super 400 reissues out there if they could find one of these. I've owned several high end gibson archtops from the historic division, and they are great, but not as nice as this guitar. I wonder why Gibson shut this shop down--obviously the makers knew what they were doing, maybe they didn't want to compete with their own custom shop. Anyway, I feel lucky to have found one.

[Jimboe]

Congrats on owning a rarity. You might want to check out this link for possible info pertaining to your Emperor reissue. Good luck
www.provide.net/~cfh/epiphone.html

Jim

[papawooly]

Hello,


I know I am a bit late on this....However...
I have owned my Imperial Emperor since 1995. Bought it at Gryphon in Palo Alto... they had no idea
what it was, I also was clueless, but having just arrived back in town after the 95 NAMM show in
Nashville, I was jonesing for a quality archtop, and when I saw this beauty suspended before me
I thought the heavens were crying out to me (no joke, I actually had a "moment")

Called and spoke to Walter Carter shortly thereafter and he dismissed this
group of instruments (at the time) as insignificant. I believe he later corrected this opinion.

This guitar is like a cannon,
and it will destroy anything that tries to play against it unless the latter is amplified. Multiple overtones
and rich harmonics accompany every note. If I play it for 20 minutes or more, the wood "warms up" and
the tones get even sweeter. This thing actually will bark and growl like a caged animal. The factory setup
was spot-on, the neck plays like a piano, beautifly inlaid mother-of-pearl and abalone inlays...aaaaahhhh.
I play it with John Pearse bronze Med-heavy. These strings have proven over the years to have best tone (for me).
The workmanship and construction of this fine instrument is without peer. Some folks have claimed that
Gibson shut down the production early due to the fact that the Fujigen crew were outshining Gibson Custom guys.
The Fujigen workshop was slated to build 60 Emperors, but ran out of quality hardwoods before completion 
of the builds and allegedly only 42 Emperors were finished.... Well we now know where 3 of them landed...
Thanks for letting me rant
Papawooly