Noel Gallagher’s 1970s Epiphone EA-250

This guitar is best know for it’s apperence on the cover of Oasis’ 1994 debut single ‘Supersonic’, photographed by Michael Spencer Jones. It’s the guitar that Noel can be seen holding, sitting on top of a piano.

The story of this guitar remains something of a mystery. According to both Johnny Marr and Noel himself, around late 1993/early 1994, Noel reportedly owned only one guitar—his Epiphone Les Paul.

Johnny Marr sent down some guitars because I only had one guitar and Bonehead had one guitar.

Noel Gallagher on the Monnow Valley Sessions

Noel once asked me what I thought of one of their gigs. I told him, “It’s great, it’s fantastic—but you really need to get another guitar.” He used to turn his back to the audience between songs to check his big tuner. I said, “You spend ages tuning up.”

Johnny Marr

Because of this, Marr sent Noel one of his own guitars, a Gibson Les Paul, prior to the Monnow Valley sessions that took place in January 1994. When the band officially booked the studio, Marr sent over several more guitars to give them more options for recording.

However, this raises questions about the timeline of the Epiphone EA-250. Noel claimed he only had one guitar during the Monnow Valley sessions, yet there are photos taken by Jamie Fry at Nomad Studios in November 1993 showing Noel holding the EA-250.

Something doesn’t quite add up. But if we apply Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is likely the correct one: Noel probably did own the EA-250 but found it either not good enough or unreliable, which is why he said he only had one (proper) guitar.

Definetely Maybe sessions and later on

In any case, it’s clear that the guitar was present during the Definitely Maybe sessions at Monnow Valley, and it’s possible that Noel used it on some of the tracks recorded there. However, whether it was used on any of the final recordings completed at the Sawmills in February remains unknown, as there are no photos to confirm its presence.

After that, Noel did pick up the guitar and used it live on a few occasions. Most notably, it was seen in April 1994 at The Warehouse Club in Leeds, during a performance that aired on the ITV show Something for the Weekend.

Sometime in late 1994, Noel gifted the guitar to Mark Coyle, the producer of Definitely Maybe. Years later, Mark sold the guitar to a private collector. In 2024, the collector auctioned it through Sotheby’s, where it fetched £48,000.

Specs

The Epiphone EA-250 is a relatively obscure model, especially when compared to more iconic Epiphone guitars like the Casino and Riviera. Manufactured by Matsumoku in Japan between 1970 and 1974, the EA-250 was sold under various brand names, including Epiphone and Univox.

This guitar features a hollow maple laminate body with a center block, a bolt-on neck, two “double-coil” pickups, and a vibrato tailpiece reminiscent of a Bigsby. The pickups are notable for their very low output, which may explain why Noel Gallagher never fully embraced the instrument.

Generally, these guitars are considered to be of relatively low quality, especially when compared to Epiphone’s Kalamazoo-made models from the 1960s. Despite this, the EA-250 has experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent years, for reasons that remain unclear.