I came across this guitar used. It was in excellent condition sold with good quality gig bag included. I picked it up and had a good look, walked away and then after some consideration went back to the shop the next day and tested it out and came home with it! It was in really wonderful condition, except for one slight ding which I have now repaired, still just visible, but smooth to the touch. I gave it a clean, new strings and oiled the fretboard which was a bit dry, then set it up to play as well as any guitar in my collection.Something about this guitar really appealed to me, I can't quite say what it is, but there are some times when you pick up an instrument and it seems to be more than the sum of its parts, even with old tarnished strings and badly in need of a clean and set up. Suddenly against your better judgment you end up adding it into the family...
This guitar is an evolution of the the Epiphone Casino, and new is not too far off the price of that guitar. However it has some important mods which I like. The neck join is at the 19th fret which gives improved access to the upper neck. The top, sides and back are in a very attractive flamed maple, not very highly figured, but good to look at. This is not a hollow body guitar like the Casino but has a centre block which carries the pickups and bridge - this makes it a lot more feedback resistant. That being said it is still a very light guitar to hold and play, very resonant, and very well balanced. Mine sounds amazing unplugged and I think that is what attracted me to it in the first instance. The maple neck is a comfortable profile and well made, using scarf joins at the headstock and heel. The parralelogram block work is expertly done and the mother of plastic inlay has a deep quality and catches the light nicely. 
Plugged in through a Hughes and Kettner valve amp the sound has a very mellow single coil defintion to it. People describe P90s as having something between a humbucker and a fender style single coil tone. I have another guitar with P90s on a tele thinline body. That guitar sounds more jangly. I think the Monte Carlo is the next step on towards the humbucker sound but still very much a single coil with lovely bell like sounds using the neck pickup. Maybe the semi-hollow body and metal pickup covers add to this. I find it works extremely well with strumming open chords - giving an almost acoustic feel to the playing. I like the trapeze tail which seems to change the responsiveness of the strings, but that might just be my imagination.
So what about the negatives? A few cosmetic grumbles, but no deal breakers. The neck pickup sits rather proud of the body where the body is contoured around the neck. The 18th fret was slightly high at the B string and needed filing to get the action spot on where I like it. The flame top is not finished to the very highest of standards noticeable only where it meets the binding it looks as if the routing was done with a rather blunt tool (but you do have to really look close up to see this). I had to tighten up the tuners, as when I took off the strings to oil the fretboard, they were rattling about, maybe due to slight shrinkage.Would I recommend this guitar? Well, it is a bit of a one off - no-one else is offering quite this combination, and it is fast becoming one of my favourites. It has perhaps some of the appeal that attracted the Beatles to their Epiphones all those years ago, but addresses some of the issues of upper neck access and feedback inherent in that model. It is reasonably finished for the price, there is nothing, in my mind, construction wise that rules it out. The lightness makes it a joy to play standing up without getting back ache. Certainly as a used guitar it is amazing value for money - I couldn't buy a kit to make my own guitar for that price, new it is probably not going to hold its value, but if you bond with it then it is a lot of guitar for the money.
