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  •  SOLD  1977 Aria Pro II PE-200-YBS
    Emperor from Aria's perspective
Extremely rare. Never seen this model so I even called Aria headquarter for identification. They acknowledged this is crafted in 1977, around which time certain numbers of PE-series were introduced including PE-175 (Herb Ellis) PE-180, PE-190 (single pickup - Charlie Christian, Robert Conti). PE-200-YBS is more similar to PE-180 which has 2 pickups.

Guitar design seems to have taken many ideas from Epiphone Emperor. The vine inlay in headstock, 'wedge and block' abalone inlay in fingerboard, and Frequensator split-trapeze tail piece are all often found in Epiphone Emperor. As for the Frequensator, the short fork on the bass side results in a deeper tone while the longer fork is used on the treble side for extra brilliance. The forks are interchangeable for varying tone as well as string tension.

With scarce info available, I can't exactly tell the timbers used for body & neck. They look like Maple, but I leave to your judgement. Fingerboard is no doubt ebony.

Condition of the guitar is excellent. Some old parts were replaced, including the tuners and bridge. No scratch / dent / ding whatsoever. Original bridge parts + hard shell case comes along with the guitar.