NBD Epiphone Thunderbird Vintage Pro

my new epi t-bird vintage pro just arrived today and it's awesome. i like it so much that i ordered another one today. when i saw that epiphone was making a t-bird that was much closer to the original to anything that Gibson has made since the mid 60's or Epiphone ever has, i knew that i just had to get one. it has a 9 piece mahogany/walnut neck with mahogany body wings, the larger headstock and tuning keys, claw tailpiece & mid sixties tun-o-matic style bridge with all nickel hardware. i used to own an all original 1963 t-bird IV in the 80's that i still regret selling and finally feel like epiphone has answered my prayers with this one. it weighs only 9lbs even and doesn't exhibit any neck dive that many of them have. for the money, i couldn't be happier with it. if it had a nitro finish it would practically be spot-on.

 

it's the epiphone case that was designed for it.

 

i don't have a 60's one to directly compare it to, but it does seem to sound pretty close to the original '63 that i owned in the 80's. my original was an exceptionally awesome sounding example of one (i wish i still had it!).
on my second one that should be here this friday or saturday, i'm going to install some gotoh res-o-lite kluson style reverse tuners on it since they look just like the 60's keys and will save 3 oz on the headstock which will be great since sweetwater stated that my second one only weighs 8lbs 3 oz and will keep it from having a neck dive issue due to its lower overall weight.

when they shipped the first one, they told me that it weighed 9lbs 3 oz so i was happily surprised when i weighed it on my very accurate digital scale and it actually weighs only 9 lbs.

 

the white ones aren't in stock yet, but i'd dig having one of those too. i'm just getting another burst one for now.

 

great. now i really want a white one.