Epiphone revives the made-in-USA Frontier acoustic

Epiphone has announced the return of the USA-made Frontier, an acoustic guitar originally manufactured in Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory from 1958 until 1970.

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The USA-made edition of the guitar joins the more affordable Masterbilt Frontier, manufactured in Qingdao, China. This new model is constructed in Bozeman, Montana with a solid figured maple back and sides, a solid Sitka spruce top, a mahogany neck and an Indian rosewood fingerboard. Construction also makes use of traditional hand-scalloped x-bracing, as well as a compound dovetail for the neck joint.

The mahogany neck has a round-C profile, and measures in at a 25.5-inch scale length, topped and tailed by a bone nut and a bone saddle sat in a ‘belly up’ Indian rosewood bridge.

Hardware includes vintage-style gold-plated Gotoh Keystone tuners and tusq bridge pins. An under-saddle LR Baggs VTC pickup is controlled by one volume control and one tone control, mounted in the soundhole.

The guitar’s pickguard notably sports an intricate “lariat and cactus” design, complimenting a nitrocellulose finish of either Frontier Burst or Antique Natural.

Recently, Epiphone also launched a new signature electric guitar for Emily Wolfe, the Sheraton Stealth. The semi-hollow guitar comes finished in Black Aged Gloss, with gold hardware including a LockTone Tune-O-Matic hardtail and Grover Rotomatic tuners. The headstock is the new Epiphone Kalamazoo shape, and is inlaid with Wolfe’s tree of life logo in mother-of-pearl, with her signature on the back.

The USA-made Frontier has a list price of $3,999, in contrast to the Masterbilt equivalent’s price of $799. Find out more at epiphone.com.