EPIPHONE CRESTWOOD CUSTOM
review
EPIPHONE CORONET, WILSHIRE & CRESTWOOD CUSTOM
82
GUITARIST FEBRUARY 2021
L
et’s get the obvious out of the way
right here: these are some of the
coolest-looking electric guitars
ever made. There’s no debating that fact,
so let’s quickly move on…
The Coronet, Wilshire and Crestwood
were released in 1958 (Crestwood)
and 1959 (Wilshire and Coronet) as
Epiphone’s answer to the Gibson Les Paul
Junior and Special. Epiphone had been
part of the Gibson family since the two
companies came together just the year
before. But the once rival firm became
vital to the parent brand in that it allowed
Kalamazoo-made instruments to be
sold to retailers that, due to territorial
restrictions in Gibson dealers’ contracts,
were otherwise out of bounds.
As was so often the case with new
models that emerged around this time,
all three underwent changes – big and
small – in the five or so years post launch.
And without presenting you with a
comprehensive and almost certainly
tedious list, some of the most obvious
changes include: slimming the body
down from the original 44.45mm (1.75
inches) to 35mm (1.375 inches) as here, and
rounding off the squarer Tele-style edges;
losing the kitsch-but-cool metal nameplate
seen on our guitars and switching from
this short double-sided headstock to the
famous ‘batwing’ six-a-side design; and
lessening the lower horn and replacing the
launch models’ asymmetrical pickguards
with the ‘butterfly’-style and large ‘E’ logo,
again as here. Possibly most notable of all
was that, when they ran out of the single-
coil Epiphone New York pickup, Gibson
wisely fitted its more powerful P-90 to the
Coronet and Wilshire, and its new mini-
humbucker to the Crestwood – which
became the Crestwood Custom a year
after launch. Phew!
So, even with that stripped-down
version of events, you can see it was a
complicated if not turbulent time for the
range, and, in a way, what we have here
is the most pleasing visual and working
compromises of all the above versions.
Clearly there’s a hierarchy present,
with the flashier two-pickup Crestwood
Custom sitting at the top of the pile and
the simplest of the three, the single-P-90
Coronet, at the bottom. Snuggled in the
middle sits the Wilshire, a sort of ‘Special’
to the Coronet’s ‘Junior’.
All three guitars are finished in lustrous
polyester, and all feature nickel-plated
hardware and the stylised Epiphone ‘E’ in
gold foil in the centre of their ‘butterfly’-
style pickguards. And just to show the level
of thought that’s gone into the new range,
they all come with Graph Tech NuBone
fingerboard nuts, where Epiphone could
have easily insinuated cheapo plastic.
Spot The Difference
Actually, Epiphone has made the
demarcations very clear in these new
models. And, while they all sit on the
EPIPHONE CORONET, WILSHIRE &
CRESTWOOD CUSTOM
£349, £399 & £489
CONTACT Epiphone WEB www.epiphone.com
Let’s get the obvious
out of the way right
here: these are some
of coolest-looking
electrics ever made
GIT468.rev_epi.indd 82 18/12/2020 11:38