Guitar Story #2: Epiphone ET-270
Details
- Guitar: Epiphone ET-270
- Year Purchased: 1977 (or so)
- Price Paid: $150.00 ($640.62 in 2021 dollars)
- Notes: 1970s Made in Japan 2 pickup offset
Farrow’s Music on 44th street in Wyoming, Michigan was the first music store I ever visited regularly. They were a small mom and pop affair with a friendly staff who were quite accommodating to this broke-ass teenager in the middle 70s. I would find any excuse I could to visit them. They were close to my school and I’d often pop in on my lunch break. Sometimes returning with a guitar or amp brochure to impress my classmates.
On one such visit I spotted a bright red used Epiphone hanging on a starter/used guitar rack alongside some brand new Hondo II Gibson and Fender knockoffs. It was $150.00. The clerk told me that it had just arrived as part of a trade. I also learned from him that Gibson owned Epiphone so it was sort of Gibson’s answer to the Stratocaster. I left there with a hard case of the wants.
My memory of what led up to my mother devising the plan that ultimately got me that guitar is unclear but knowing myself I am fairly certain that it involved a LOT of whining on my part. My mother’s plan – which was quite brilliant – follows:
My sister took up the saxophone in middle school band the previous year and my dad had to purchase a sax for her. A fairly hefty purchase. Unfortunately, my sister found that after a year of band she did not want to play the sax or to be in band. So she quit. So while I was busy whining to my mom about not being able to afford the Epiphone, my sister was expressing how worried shitless she was about having to inform my dad that she had quit band and wouldn’t be using the saxophone that he had shelled out good money for. My mom suggested we approach my dad with the idea that we would take the sax that he already paid for and was no longer going to be used and turn it into a guitar that I would not only use but dedicate my life to. I’m sure there was a lecture and a “told you so” involved but in the end we got the OK to make the swap.
The clerk was really honest with me when I showed up with the saxophone. He said the sax was worth more than the guitar but he couldn’t give me its full worth in a trade type deal. He suggested I sell the sax and use the cash to buy the guitar and maybe even have enough left over for an amp. I wasn’t having that at all and knew I wasn’t leaving without the guitar. I told him he could throw in a cord and a pedal if it made him feel better about things. So he did. He gave me one Belden cable and told to pick out a pedal from the display case which had a handfull of Electro Harmonix and Ibanez stomp boxes. I chose a bright orange Ibanez Rotophase and we did the deal.
I played that guitar for 3 years and loved it for a solid 2.5. I also put a lot of money into it. First, the nut broke so I had a bone nut cut. Then I added Grover Rotomatics and Speed Knobs. Then I had a level and crown and got a hard case for it. I used it in my very first band.
It’s worth noting that Kurt Cobain played one of these for like 20 minutes in the 90s and it sort of became the “Kurt Cobain model” according to nearly every sales listing since.
All in all it was a solid guitar and I definitely got good use out of it. I don’t think it was the finest example of Japanese guitar manufacturing. It had a thick, gloopy poly finish like a lot of cheaper guitars from that era and the pickups were pretty weak. Although, I would be interested in hearing them now as my tastes have evolved a bit over the past 40 some years.