Skinted Or Minted?

Pro guitarist Stuart Ryan owns both a cheap 90s Epiphone and a high-end Gibson 'Murphy Lab' ES-335. But which is better?' asks Jamie Dickson

- Jamie Dickson

Stuart Ryan is a familiar face around these parts. A well-known educator and pro guitarist, he's contributed many superb demos and lessons to Guitarist. We're huge fans of his agile, articulate playing, which spans everything from Americana to acoustic fingerstyle. We'll also freely admit to having envied his guitar collection over the years, which has included some of the very best instruments money can buy, from Froggy Bottom acoustics to Custom Shop unobtainium, vintage flat-tops and more. But a recent A/B comparison video Stuart posted on social media gave us pause for thought.

In the video, Stuart played a modded 30-year-old Epiphone Sheraton alongside a 1959-spec Gibson 'Murphy Lab' ES-335 worth around £5,000. While a keen ear could detect subtle differences, it's fair to say that the Epiphone gave as good as it got. Given that we were making this Epiphone anniversary issue as the video was posted, the time seemed right to get to the bottom of whether it really is worth making the extra investment to get a Custom Shop semi when an old Korean Epiphone can come so tantalisingly close to matching Murphy Lab performance with a few judicious mods. Intrigued, we gave Stuart a call to find out more, starting with how he came by the Epiphone in the first place.

"That Epiphone was my 18th birthday present, nearly 30 years ago," he recalls. "I found it under my parents' bed, two days before my 18th birthday. I kind of knew I was getting it, but when I found it, I thought, I'm going to open this now and have a strum.' And yeah, it just felt great. Those Epiphones from that era, they're amazing, absolutely amazing. About 10 years ago, I had a '63 Custom Shop 335 and I ended up preferring that particular Epiphone, to be honest. So the 335 went and that was even prior to the upgrades I've since made to the Epiphone.