1962 Epiphone Coronet, as made famous by Johnny Marr

One of the holy trinity of Gibson-made solid-body Epiphones - beautiful symmetry from open-book headstock to fully rounded body, one P-90, and lashings of mojo.  No surprises to find one of these among Johnny Marr's favourite guitars.  It really is something.

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$20K.  That's what Gibson spent to buy Epiphone in 1957.  Only, Gibson never meant to buy all of Epiphone . . . or so the story goes.  Epiphone's fortunes were in decline in the post-war years - the passing of Epi Stathopoulu, the man who gave the company its name and its success, the bickering and fall-out of the two sons who took over from him, a decline in quality and a lack of innovation were all conspiring to bring Epiphone to a standstill.  But one standstill can be another platform.  And, purely by chance, Ted McCarty, then President at rival Gibson, had been harbouring a dream to get back into upright double-basses.  And Epiphone were famous for them.  So, that's what he bought, only later to realise that the $20K he'd spent had bought him everything - brand, designs, stock, parts, the whole lot.  Never part of the plan, but an opportunity too good to miss - and a lot smarter in hindsight than investing in a double-bass business, however good.

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Unexpected plan achieved, a new plan was needed: sell cheaper versions of existing Gibson models under the Epiphone brand.  A brilliant market-expanding idea, though, again with hindsight, it's ironic that Gibson themselves were the early pioneers of the imitation business that was to plague all US guitar brands in the late 60s and 70s.  But the good news is that McCarty gave some free rein to the Epiphone designers to do their own thing too.  And so they did.  Epiphone had never before made solid-bodies - and now they could.  Cue the Crestwood, Coronet and Wilshire.  Some say alternatives to the double-cut Gibson Les Paul Junior - and, yes, there are some similarities.  But roll-forward to 1962 and you have this beautifully symmetrical and rounded-edge range.  And just before the re-styles that took inspiration from the (come on, let's face it, uglier) early-60s Fender offsets and batwing headstocks.  A beauty to behold.

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The Coronet's been in and out of fashion ever since - from Del Shannon to Johnny Marr to James Bay - though it's this 1962 symmetrical version that Johnny Marr picked up, restrung in Nashville tuning (with the strings from a 12-string replacing the bottom E to G strings), and used to bring the magic to William It Was Really Nothing and Half A Person.  This one comes with a standard set of strings - and of course that smoking P-90.  William, the song needs to be rewritten: not nothing, it really is something ;-).