Toward the latter half of the early 20th century, Gibson and Epiphone, America’s two leading production guitar makers, were competing in an increasingly outrageous volley to determine who was the superior archtop guitar manufacturer (I suppose Gibson’s purchase of Epiphone in 1957 that settled that), but after a number of increases in volume, flash, and most importantly (in their minds) size, the 18 ½ inch Epiphone Emperor was born, measuring in at just a half an inch bigger than the already massive Gibson Super 400. Having crowned themselves, essentially, with both the name and the sheer imposing scale of the guitar they created, Epiphone then introduced increasingly complex versions of their top of the line Archtop, resulting, in 1951, in the Zephyr Regent model of the Emperor.

Zephyr, in Epiphone speak, refers to the electronics on board, and Regent refers to the cutaway. Mounted into the huge laminate flamed maple body are three “Tone Spectrum” single coil pickups, that have more of a P90 sound than anything. These are hooked up to the unique “Vari-Tone” pickup selector (not to be confused with the Varitone produced by Gibson for guitars like the ES-345) that have a push button mechanism to select which pickup to play. With all the mounting materials and the aforementioned buttons being made of the 50’s plastic analogue Bakelite, it’s impressive they’re still in as great condition as they are.

The pickup selector is wonderfully analog, with the switches feeling like you’re turning on the lights to a warehouse, and allow for the tonal combination of all three pickups on board, including the rare out of phase position between both outside pickups.

With a scale length of 25.5”, this guitar’s got plenty of punch, and coupled with a 1 11/16 nut, has plenty of playablity as well, thanks in part to the surprisingly modern feeling C profile neck.

Sonically, this grand old gal has a nice full archtop sound, a little bit more midrange-y than its Gibson compatriots of the day, with more of that nice dry, almost sweet sound that single coils on archtops give you. The tone control rolls of the high end nicely, and, interestingly, gives a little bit of a volume boost. This would be a heck of a big band jazz guitar.

In great condition for 71 years old, withe expected finish checking and one or two spots of major wear, including the back of the neck. Comes with a hard case.