First, I like my Epiphones. And I like my Gibsons. Or at least I like the ones from both brands that I have now.
Like so many others, my entry into the world of the Les Paul was with an Epiphone. It was a Studio model. It was not a great guitar. At the time, I had 2 other electrics. I had a Strat that I really liked, and I had a Washburn semi-hollow. I had gotten a small bonus at work, and I wanted to try out a Les Paul. The one that I got just happened to be in the budget by the time I split that bonus between me, Mrs Snarf, and the savings account. So I ordered it. I actually wanted another model that the store told me was discontinued, and this Studio model was the other one that I could afford. So I got it.
From the time I pulled it out of the box, I wasn’t a big fan. The neck pickup was really muddy. Like, you-jumped-out-of-the-truck-and-sunk-to-your-knees-in-the-muck-and-the-mire muddy. The bridge was an ok pickup, but it was, to me, still a cheap sounding pickup. I kept it for probably 10 years before I traded it off. I really wanted to like it.
Because of that one, even though I was judging their entire line by their entry level Les Paul, I wasn’t really interested in Epiphones. Then I got an itch for a 335-style guitar. I saw an ad for their 2012 1962 50th Anniversary Edition Sheratons. I really liked the look of it. Sunburst. Fancy inlays. Fancy headstock. Gibson mini-humbuckers. CTS pots and switches. And the Frequensator tail piece looked really cool to me. So I bit.
At the time, it was their top of the line Sheraton. It has been a great guitar. It seems to have a little trouble staying in tune, but I really like it.
Then I got an Epiphone 339. It was a great guitar. Is a great guitar. But I’ll explain the “was” in a bit. It was one that I would occasionally stick in the closet to play other guitars. But whenever I would pull it back out, I would be reminded how much I liked it, and it would be my main player for a while. I really liked that you could get some 335 sounds from it as well as some LP sounds. It was just good playing, good feeling, good sounding guitar. Whenever I would play out and needed an electric, that was the one I grabbed.
Because I still had that 335 itch, a few years after I got that Sheraton, I got a Gibson 335 Studio. It was a good guitar. My biggest problem with it is that, if you tried to get any vibrato on the 1st string, it would fall off the fret board. I liked that guitar. Played it a lot. But got tired of having to remember to avoid shaking the 1st string. That may’ve been something that could’ve been fixed if I had it professionally setup rather doing it myself, but I’ll never know. I ended up trading it off at the same time I traded that Epi LP a few paragraphs above.
When I made that trade, I never really intended to get another LP. That Epi Studio was just so heavy. And the pickups weren’t great. So no more LPs for me. But I had always really liked the look of a gold top LP. Truth is, the first electric guitar I remember seeing (and thought was super cool looking) was when I was a little kid over at a buddy’s house. Sitting in the corner was a gold top LP with P90s and a trapeze tail piece that belonged to his brother. To me, aesthetically, that is one of a few perfect guitars.
I saw a screaming deal on an open box Epiphone 50s Standard LP gold top. It had humbuckers in it instead of P90s. But it was such a good deal that I got it. Figured it would be a closet queen. I played it so much, I eventually swapped the Probucker 1 and 2 pickups out for a pair of Burstbucker 1 and 2 pickups I had sitting on the shelf. It has become the guitar I probably play more than any other.
Because of the 339 and the Sheraton, I had the 335 itch again. I knew that the Gibson I had was a good guitar, but it wasn’t that much better than my Epiphones. So I went to my local Guitar Center and played all the 335 type guitars that I they had. Gibson, Sire, Ibanez, and Epiphone. My search actually came down to the Emily Wolfe Sheraton and an Inspired by Gibson ES-335. I ended up with the 335. It’s been a great guitar. And it has scratched that 335 itch well. Truth is, I swapped the stock pickups out for a pair of 57 Classics I had on the shelf, and keep thinking I need to put the stock ones back in.
Then, because I had been playing that Standard 50s LP more than anything, the 339 had finally gone into the closet for a good while. But as much as I always liked it, I wanted to try a specific Gibson ES-339. I put an alert on Reverb for it and told a couple of local stores that if they got one to call me. Never got a call from the stores. Every few months, my alert would fire off on Reverb, but, by the time I would see it and call the store, it was already gone. Finally saw one and got the store called in time. I finally got my Gibson 339.
At some point, I’ll write about the differences in the two. I used to joke that my Gibson 335 was a Friday afternoon guitar with several little quirks like that high E string that would fall off the side. The ES-339 is the opposite of that 335. .There is nothing wrong with it. It’s the guitar that made me see why folks are willing to pay what they pay for a Gibson. When they are firing on all cylinders, they make some super nice guitars.
And now to the point of all my rambling. Both Epiphone and Gibson make some exceptional guitars. Both also make some dogs. There is a difference in price points in the brands (that now seems to overlap), and, if you get a top of the line from both, you’ll see why. It’s like the difference in a Corvette (a super nice, high-end sports car) and a Ferrari (a super nice, even higher-end sports car). The merits of each can be debated until the cows come home. Is my Gibson ES-339 worth 6x more than the Epiphone ES-339? I don’t know. I can, however, point out some very specific differences in the two, some of which are very subtle, that could justify the higher price. Again, it could be debated, and some of it may be that Gibson-Made-in-the-USA tax.
Either way, they can both be great guitars, and, between the two, you could find something that probably fits your budget.