The most famous player of Epiphone Casino must be John Lennon. The fully hollow thinline guitar without the normal center block produced deeper feedback and more versatile echo, and in fact not only John but Pual and George instantly become the fan of Casino. It was an ideal guitar for stage and studio and played across their many landmark recordings including Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Also said was that in 1968 when the Beatles were making the White Album John took the pick guard off and sanded the bare wood to apply lacquered coats. That must be the reason why I see many of Casino's are hanging around without the pick guard.

Casino is often compared to its parent model Gibson ES-330 in that they have the same full hollow thinline body, two P-90 pickups and trapezoid tailpiece. These full hollowbody models are easily distinguishable from the others as it gives players a clear, ringing tone that could be pushed into overdrive when needed and it also makes the sound lighter and louder when played without an amplifier.

To introduce the feautres of this unique Japanese Casino, there are a few idenditifiable aspects: the neck joines the body at the 17th fret, not the 16th of other models. This enables you to play higher position frets with less stress. Also the serials numbers are 5 digits in which the 1st indicates the year of 198x or 199x, 2nd telling the model (2:EMPEROR, 3:RIVIERA, 4:SHERATON, 5:CASINO) and the rests being the production number of that year. The years between 1987 and 1997 were manufactured Terada music factory, a globally famous Japanese OEM vendor of Ibanez and other major guitars.