In this post let’s take a quick look to see if this Epiphone Matsumoku Les Paul purportedly manufactured in the 80s could be in fact any of the official MIJ Epiphone Les Pauls produced in a later era.
As far as I know, there are only 2 ranges from the MIJ Epiphones that this guitar could likely “fit” into: LQ series and the Elitist.
Epiphone Elitist
The Elitist (earlier name: Elite) series guitars were produced by Epiphone in the early to mid-2000s. I believe that they still do produce guitars through this line; however I’m not sure if they still produce the Les Paul Elitist.
Going by the specs, these are quality guitars that would not fall into a “budget” line. From the Elitist catalogue it appears that the Les Pauls come with Grover machine heads, Made in USA “Elitist” pickups and real abalone/pearl inlays. They certainly look like nice guitars and I have seen many an impressive specimen in the likes of mylespaul.com, flickr, etc. From the photos online, I can see that some of these Elitist models have “open book” headstocks with a very similar Epiphone script logo on the headstock (although not exactly the same).
I don’t think this Matsumoku LP is actually a misidentified Elitist for the following reasons:
Serial number – All Elitists have a numbering system that start with letter ‘F’ or ‘T’ denoting the factory of origin, as far as I know. All the ones I’ve seen are stamped. The Matsumoku LP does not follow this serial numbering scheme or method of imprint.
Elitist decal – All Elitists I’ve seen have the Epiphone Elite or Elitist decals at the back of the neck
Hardware – Yes tuners can be replaced but the screw locations are different for Grovers vs the Gotoh style generics that are on there now, so I know it didn’t originally come with Grovers
Pickups – MMK-61s on this one, USA made Epiphone pickups on the Elitists
Logo – subtle but noticeable differences between them
Conclusion: Unlikely
Epiphone LQ series
Similar to the Elitist series, these were released to the Japanese domestic market, and look like fine examples of Epiphone Les Pauls. I believe that they share the same numbering system as the Elitists (letter in the serial number denoting factory of origin), but they do not carry the same Elite/Elitist decal. Most of the ones that I’ve seen (on eBay etc) have “LQJ” stamped in the neck cavity and “Made in Japan” printed/decal on the back of the headstock. They also come with Grovers and Epiphone humbuckers.
I don’t think this guitar is a misidentified LQ series Epi for basically the same reasons as the Elitist: Serial numbers, hardware, pickups, logo…
Conclusion: Unlikely
Note that there are many images available online showing examples of Elitist and LQ series guitars from Epiphone. I have not added or linked any of them here because I do not own the images.With a little digging around you will be able to see what I am referring to in this post, do some comparisons on your own and decide if your guitar is a Epiphone Matsumoku Les Paul or not.
Above: Epiphone LQ series. Photo used with permission of owner Harold Wulf (Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wulfh/)
Above: Epiphone LQ series. Photo used with permission of owner Harold Wulf (Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wulfh/)