2008 Epiphone Elitist Byrdland Natural (SOLD)

In the mid 1950's, Billy Byrd and Hank Garland were two of the hottest session players in Nashville, and Gibson produced the Byrdland to meet their needs.  

Introduced in 1955, the Byrdland has a full 17 inch wide body, with maple back and sides and carved spruce top - but its depth is only 2.25 inches, and to allow for complex chording, the scale length is very short at 23.5 inches. It's been available with both florentine (pointed) and venetian (rounded) cutaways.  

This is an Epiphone Elitist Byrdland in natural finish, built during 2008 at the Terada plant near Nagoya. This plant builds many top quality instruments, including much of the Gretsch pro-line guitars.  

This guitar is in very good condition, and largely original except for the substitution of custom wound PAF style pickups. The original pickups are in the included original hard-shell case.  

The wood selection on this guitar is specactular, with a very nicely flamed and bookmatched set used for the back and sides.  

Byrdlands are fun to play because they are so easy to get around on and 'big' chords are an easy reach. The spruce archt top construction lends itself to jazz playing, but as Ted Nugent illustrates, it certainly doesn't limit it.