This is probably the nicest and cleanest example of an early Epiphone Casino that you have ever seen. It's from the year 1961, which was also the year of introduction for this particular model. At that time the model was available in the regular 'shaded finish' or 'Royal Tan'. This guitar is finished in Royal Tan, actually a pretty rare color on any Gibson-era Epiphone. Everything on the guitar is stock and as you can see in the photos it has the typical features you will only find on a model from this era. Metal peghead logo plate and individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic buttons that show no trace of crumbling or shrinking and a 5-digit serial number in the low-16000s. An interesting detail is that the serial # on the blue label inside the guitar is one digit off from the serial # on the back of the peghead, which is something that happened quite often at Gibson/Epiphone during this particular period. Other typical features are the nickel ABR-1 tune-o-matic without retainer spring, the black plastic pickup covers and the dot-inlayed fingerboard. The nickel plated Kluson tailpiece is somewhat unusual for this period during which you will normally find the Waverly version. Well, not on this one! All nickel plating on the guitar is in excellent condition except for some corrosion on the Kluson tailpiece. The guitar still has the original case with blue plush lining and the same light-brown outside covering as Epiphone amps from that same era would have.