Cherry Picker

Ted McCarty’s finest creation gets the Epiphone ‘Inspired By’ treatment. Featuring Gibson USA Custombuckers, real rosewood fingerboard and top-notch hardware, expectations are high

- Neville Marten

Any guitarist that doesn’t know the Gibson ES-335 story must have been living on planet Zog for the past 67 years. Therefore we won't insult you with a full-on history and description. Let’s simply remind ourselves of how this legendary model's semi-hollow - laminated thinline construction with solid centre section, two deep cutaways and a set of powerful humbucking pickups - made it one of the best-sounding, most versatile and nicest playing guitars of all time. It’s up there as one of the coolest lookers, too.

As we've seen for some time now, Epiphone loves to get in on the act. And some of the instruments we’ve plugged in and played in recent years, especially the Joe Bonamassa models and these ‘Inspired By Gibson Custom’ offerings, have been mightily impressive. The fact that they consistently fit Gibson USA pickups, and use top-flight hardware and electrics gives them a great advantage over much of the competition in this hotly contested sector.

For this new 1962 Reissue, Epiphone offers the two most popular ES-335 colours: Sixties Cherry and Vintage Burst. And featuring as it does the Gibson-style 'open book' headstock shape it takes a second or two to realise it's actually not the genuine article. Timber-wise, it gets pretty close, too. A cream-bound, laminated maple and poplar semi-hollow body with solid maple centre section is mated to a one-piece mahogany neck with bound genuine rosewood fingerboard and mother-of-pearl small block inlays (original Gibsons only had pearloid).

Everything looks and feels solidly made and the Vintage Gloss finish, though not nitrocellulose, is convincing enough with its slightly matted-off look, not dissimilar to Gibson's own VOS treatment.