This mandolin has a teardrop shaped body, twin open f-holes, a sunburst finish top and uniform mahogany brown back and sides. According to history books the Venetian is the only Gibson-made Epiphone mandolin model, meaning a mandolin made in the USA at the Gibson Kalamazoo factory. After 1970 Epiphone brand instruments were made in Japan and since then they have moved on to other Far Eastern countries, but back then they were as American as apple pie and well advertised bladder control products. Just to back up a scootch, Chicago Musical Instruments, which owned Gibson, purchased Epiphone Instruments, formerly of New Yawk City, in 1957. The Venetian model is a very clever name since the widely known “Florentine” model, named after Florence, Italy, had the big body scroll, twin body points, plus the two smaller headstock scrolls and central point, and so it is not unacceptable for some wizard of merchandising to attribute the symmetrically-shaped teardrop or pear-shaped body to Venice. This “other” city, per the revered Wiki, “is in northern Italy and is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region; the city stretches across 117 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. The saltwater lagoon stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po (south) and the Piave (north) Rivers.”
This model is the Epiphone direct equivalent of the Gibson A-50 and like the A-50 measures 10 ½” in body width, the fingerboard actually extends 11 frets to where the neck joins the body and it has 20 frets in total. Joining at the 11th is uncommon – normally Gibson A-style mandolins join at the 10th fret except for the short-lived wide-body version of the A-50 that appeared from mid-1937 to 1942 which had 12 frets to the body. This Epiphone sports a vintage sunburst finish top and back and uniform brown sides and neck. It has crème celluloid (plastic) binding on each of its sides, and on its Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. Said fingerboard hosts 8 pearloid dotmarkers in 7 positions starting from fret #3; the headplate is black veneer and bears the “Epiphone” gold decal logo and a spear-point truss rod cover held in place by two roundhead Phillips screws. Tuners are four-on-a-plate Kluson Deluxe logo and the serial number is stamped above the tuners. There are two dings below the serial number.
There is a scuff and a ding above the neck heel on the back of the neck and overall this mandolin shows only light scratches and minor signs of use and wear – much less than expected for a 1964 mandolin. It has a three-ply laminated (black-white-black border on 3 sides) teardrop pickguard. This model Epiphone has a scalloped, slide-on tailpiece cover with no etching on it, and a two- piece, presumably Brazilian rosewood, adjustable bridge. Its top is wide-grained spruce with some cross-silking and its back and sides are maple with some figure demonstrable on the back.
Overall the condition of this mandolin is unusually clean and the instrument is quite beautiful. It is not often seen, the Epiphone Venetian, but most definitely worthy of any mandolin players’ consideration. NOW ON SALE !!! Was $1335. . .