Epiphone | 1958 Korina Flying V & Explorer
Get recreations of the models that launched the Golden Era of electric guitar design into the Space Age!
Epiphone has announced the launch of a new Limited Edition run of instruments recreating two of the most recognizable and valuable vintage guitars ever produced! Made in partnership with the Gibson Custom Shop, the new Limited Edition 1958 Korina Flying V and 1958 Korina Explorer bring the authentic details of each original model to today’s guitarists!
Blasting off into the electric guitar stratosphere!
Although Gibson's first solidbody electric guitar—the Les Paul Standard—has come to represent the pinnacle achievement of design in the instrument category today, by 1957, sales of the company’s flagship solidbody guitar were not as high as Gibson President Ted McCarty had hoped. So, ahead of the NAMM show that same year, he put together a team of employees at Gibson to design the what would come to be known as the “Modernistic” series, with an aim to shake things up at the show, by coming up with guitar shapes that were different from anything else on the market.
Far ahead of their time, the resulting futuristic designs—which included the Flying V and Explorer—achieved McCarty’s goal, shocking the guitar world with Modernistic series’ sharply-angled shapes and supremely resonant Korina bodies.
While the Flying V was adopted by a few players from the start, like bluesman Albert King, the Modernistic series models produced from 1958-’59 were seen largely as novelties, with only an estimated 98 Flying Vs having shipped, overall, while just a mere 22 Explorers are known to have been produced—making the surviving instruments from both models’ initial production run even rarer (and more valuable) finds on the vintage market than even the fabled Burst Les Paul Standards from the same years!
Limited Edition 1958 Korina Flying V
Recreating what is arguably one of the most distinctive and beloved guitar shapes ever produced, the Epiphone Limited Edition 1958 Flying V features a Korina body and neck with a long neck tenon and 1958 Flying V neck profile. Equipped with an Indian laurel fretboard and gold hardware, it also features Gibson Burstbucker 2 and Burstbucker 3 pickups wired to individual volume controls and a master tone control with CTS potentiometers and a Mallory capacitor. An Epiphone x Gibson Custom logo is proudly displayed on the back of the headstock, and a hardshell case is also included.
Limited Edition 1958 Korina Explorer
Named after the first American satellite launched into orbit, the space-age design of the original Explorers proved to be decades ahead of their time. Like the ultra-rare original Gibson models from 1958, the Epiphone Limited Edition 1958 Explorer features a Korina body and neck, with a long tenon and 1958 Explorer neck profile. It’s equipped with an Indian laurel fretboard and gold hardware, with Gibson Burstbucker 2 and Burstbucker 3 pickups wired to individual volume controls and a master tone control, outfitted with CTS potentiometers and a Mallory capacitors, as well as an Epiphone x Gibson Custom logo on the back of the headstock. A hardshell case is also included.
Capture the mystique of these recreations today by pre-ordering yours at Chicago Music Exchange!
SHOP EPIPHONE
Related Posts
The Kugescreamer Overdrive Presented by Chicago Music Exchange
Whatcha gonna do when CME’s first pedal runs wild on you?!? Listen up, brother! Created in conjunction with Rigs of Dad and Keeley Electronics, CME’s first pedal, the Limited Edition CME Exclusive Kugescreamer, is a manly hunk of hot ’n’ heavy overdrive, slathered in bitchin’ art by John Clark Bailey Jr. and designed with one thing in mind.
Read more
Fender 2019 New Releases
2019 has thus far been a big year for Fender. Coming hot off of the release of the new Acoustisonic model, and a fresh lineup of Fender effects Pedals, Fender kept the new product train rolling with the announcement of two new lines of electric guitars; the Alternate Reality Series and the Rarities series.
Read more
Fender Custom Shop 30th Anniversary Jimmie Vaughan Signature Stratocaster
In advance of Vaughan’s new album, Baby, Please Come Home, releasing May 17th on Last Music Company, Fender celebrates thirty years of the legendary Vaughan Brothers’ duo record, Family Style, with the release of the Custom Shop 30th Anniversary Jimmie Vaughan Signature Stratocaster–available here in three classic colorways: Olympic White, Aztec Gold, and Wide Fade 2-Tone Sunburst.
Read more