The Matsumoku company manufactured the EPIPHONE SC-550 in Japan from 1976 to 1979. Despite their high standard of construction their secondhand prices are reasonable, possibly because some people find their appearance odd. I think they look great, the scroll and German carve gives them a 19th century feel.

The SC-550 has a distinctive three piece maple body with a scroll on the upper horn and a German carve around the body. The set neck is also three-piece maple with an ebony fingerboard, block inlays and brass nut. Scale length is 25.5 inches, and the fingerboard width is 1-11/14 inches at the nut. The 24 fret neck joins the body at the 21st fret. Both the neck and headstock are bound.

Hardware is gold plated including a fully adjustable tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail-piece.

Pickups are two exposed coil humbuckers, controlled by a three position toggle switch and single volume/tone controls. There is also a coil tap switch.

Finish options were ebony (SC-550B) or natural (SC-550N).

There was also the option to have Gibson humbuckers on the SC-550. These models with the Gibson pickups were the SC-550B-G (ebony finish) or SC-550N-G (natural finish). These Gibson buckers had inductance of 8.6 Henries, a resonant peak of 6.0 KHz and DC resistance of 16 K Ohms. They had dual exposed black bobbins (with a T on the top), 12 adjustable  gold plated pole pieces and copper-wrap shielding/grounding.

Photos from Ebay Germany auction February 2010