Hello Ptan
This is what I found:
There is no reliable documentation from this time period.
There are more informed posters than I. But until then, yes late 70's / early 80's is about right.
This is probably an Epiphone produced during the Norlin years.
The early ones have a blue label. Later ones have a tan label that say 'Norlin'
You will not be able to narrow it down to more than a 5-10 year span as
during the 'bad old' Norlin years, serial numbers were anything but serial,
nor were they consistent.
These are not necessarily bad guitars, just that Norlin tried some weird
stuff to keep costs down. Some were not so successful.
Sometimes physical description and pictures can get it narrowed down
further.
http://www.gibson.com/Products/epiphone ... tid=158651