1940 Gibson ES-300

In 1936, Gibson first started making the ES-150, their first cataloged amplified archtop guitar. The rather plain instrument proved to be an immediate hit with a brilliant young player named Charlie Christian, whose fiery bop lead lines were perfectly suited the ES-150’s new electric tone. (To this day, the angular pickup in that guitar is know as the Charlie Christian pickup.) Gibson was excited by the interest the new electric guitars were stirring up and they began to experiment with new models and new pickup designs. The Charlie Christian pickup sounded good, but the primitive non-pole piece blade design meant the string to string volume balance was never quite right. Also, it had a lot of parts and was difficult to manufacture. Given those issues, Gibson came up with this pickup. (I’ll just wait here while you contemplate it.)

This huge pickup was only offered on the ES-300 for a year or so before Gibson decided that it was perhaps not the best design. I have played one guitar with this pickup and it actually sounded pretty good, but the tonal balance was a bit off. The bass strings, where the pickup is near the fingerboard, have a nice warm tone. The treble strings, with the pickup near the bridge, are bright and clear. I’m not sure exactly what Gibson was up to with this pickup, but I suspect that the mixed tone was the point until someone pointed out that two pickups would perhaps be a better design. Still, it is a very cool if slightly odd looking guitar. These guitars are very rare but if you’d like to add it to your quiver, Players Vintage Instruments would like to help you out for a mere $7500.

Read about the 1941 version of the ES-300 here.

In every issue of The Fretboard Journal, we feature some of the most beautiful fretted instruments known to humanity. Sadly, most of the time they belong to someone else and aren’t for sale. With our new Catch of the Day column, we scour the web looking for world-class instruments that you can actually buy for yourself, right now.