Epiphone decided to refresh some models for 2023 to celebrate their 150th anniversary. So I thought it would be a good time to get the Casino. Well, it arrived with a few minor detail oriented shortcomings. The output jack was loose. Tone knob for the neck pickup came off easily. I fixed both issues. The pickguard “E” started to peel off. Initially, I was gonna reglue it, but I decided to remove the whole thing. The guitar looks much better without it, anyway. There’s one more thing I will have to work on. After checking the setup, I measured the nut height at the first fret, and I’ll have to cut the slots to improve tuning stability and intonation. I’ve done it before on my Broadway.
Overall, I’m happy with the Casino. The guitar is well made. It looks and sounds great. Although the playability is fine, it will improve when I file down the nut slots. Now, I didn’t get it just because the Beatles had used the Casinos. I got it because of the following factors:
Hollow body
Light weight
Comfort (16th fret neck joint makes the 24.75” scale length feel shorter)
Less prone to feedback than my Broadway
Loud enough acoustically to practice unplugged
Great jazz sound when plugged in
Historically, the Epiphone Casino is essentially an equivalent to Gibson ES-330 with some small cosmetic differences. This one was made in China, but I’ll give it a score of 9 out of 10 due to the above-mentioned issues.