The Epiphone Coronet is an entry level guitar previously manufactured by

Epiphone Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his f ...

. The guitar has been manufactured a number of times since its first production on the 1950s.

History

The Coronet was first manufactured by Gibson under the Epiphone brand in 1959. It was priced at approximately $120,Bacon, Tony, ed. (2001)
''Echo and Twang: Classic Guitar Music of the '50s''
p. 61. Backbeat Books. and was seen as a reliable entry level guitar. Originally the Coronet came with a single Epiphone New York pickup in the treble position. In 1959, Epiphone began shipping new Coronets with a P-90 pickup and began offering the Coronet with its signature cherry red finish. Some Coronets that were manufactured in the 1960s (from 1961) were made under the Dwight brand. Dwight was a house brand used by Gibson for Sonny Shields Music in East Saint Louis (

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

), which was owned by Charles “Dwight” Shields. The first version of these Dwight-brand Coronets featured a "D" on the pickguard and the "Dwight" logo on the

headstock A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instruments such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the pegs or mechanism that holds the strings at the ...

, the second version (introduced in 1963) of these "Dwight" Coronets had an Epiphone "batwing" headstock with "Dwight model" on the trussrod cover and no "D" on its pickguard. In the 1970s, production of the Coronet came to a halt when Epiphone left its facilities in

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropol ...

, to move overseas. There was a short run of Coronets in the late 1990s, which were made in Korea. These featured OBL model pickups, a single coil in the neck position and a

humbucker A humbucking pickup, humbucker, or double coil, is a type of guitar pickup that uses two wire coils to cancel out the noisy interference picked up by coil pickups. In addition to electric guitar pickups, humbucking coils are sometimes used in ...

in the bridge position, with a pull-out tone knob to tap the humbucker. As was the case with the original Coronet, the hardware and style of the Coronet varied through this short run. Some had six-on-a-side batwing-shaped

s, while others had more classic 3-on-a-side Gibson-style headstocks. The short-lived USA Coronet of 1990 had a similar pickup layout and matching electronics except for the addition of a two-octave rosewood

fingerboard The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The st ...

with rectangular block markers and a reverse droopy

Explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

-style headstock. The USA Coronets came with the choice of gold hardware with stop tailpiece or black hardware with licensed

Floyd Rose The Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo, or simply Floyd Rose, is a type of locking vibrato arm for a guitar. Floyd D. Rose invented the locking vibrato in 1976, the first of its kind, and it is now manufactured by a company of the same name. The Floyd ...

locking

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single note, particularly used on bowed string instruments, by rapidly moving the bow back and fo ...

. Epiphone reissued the Coronet again in 2020 fitted with a wrap-around bridge, a single P-90 pickup, and available in black and cherry red finishes.

Notable users

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* Carl Barat * Jimi HendrixHeatley, Michael (2009)
''Jimi Hendrix Gear''
p. 34. Voyageur Press. * Ryan Jarman *

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* Drew Shirley *

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* Vigilante Carlstroem *

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Wayne Kramer Wayne Kramer may refer to: * Wayne Kramer (filmmaker) (born 1965), South African film writer and director * Wayne Kramer (guitarist) (born 1948), American guitarist {{Hndis, Kramer, Wayne ...

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Kent Steedman Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces th ...

* Deniz Tek *

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* Alex Turner (

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)

References

External links

{{commons cat
Epiphone Coronet
on Vintage Guitars
Epiphone Coronet
on Shanzu Guitars

Coronet A coronet is a small crown consisting of ornaments fixed on a metal ring. A coronet differs from other kinds of crowns in that a coronet never has arches, and from a tiara in that a coronet completely encircles the head, while a tiara doe ...