The Coronet was first manufactured by
Gibson under the Epiphone brand in 1959. It was priced at approximately $120, and was seen as a reliable entry level guitar. Originally the Coronet came with a single Epiphone New York
pickup In the 1970s, production of the Coronet came to a halt when Epiphone left its facilities in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, to move overseas. There was a short run of Coronets in the late 1990s, which were made in Korea. These featured OBL model pickups, a single coil in the neck position and a
humbucker in the bridge position, with a pull-out tone knob to tap the humbucker. As was the case with the original Coronet, the hardware and style of the Coronet varied through this short run. Some had six-on-a-side batwing-shaped
headstocks, while others had more classic 3-on-a-side Gibson-style headstocks. The short-lived
USA Coronet of 1990 had a similar pickup layout and matching electronics except for the addition of a two-octave rosewood
fingerboard with rectangular block markers and a reverse droopy
Explorer-style headstock. The USA Coronets came with the choice of gold hardware with stop tailpiece or black hardware with licensed
Floyd Rose locking
tremolo. Epiphone reissued the Coronet again in 2020 fitted with a wrap-around bridge, a single P-90 pickup, and available in black and cherry red finishes. ==Notable users==