In the meantime, however, Gibson had elevated the L-5 and Super 400 acoustics with cutaway versions in 1939. Gibson was also busy developing new pickups, and the unit on the ES-300 had six height-adjustable polepieces (a concept Gibson borrowed from Epiphone) housed in an attractive oval piece of tortoiseshell celluloid. Gibson upgraded its electric line in 1939 with the fancier 17″-wide ES-250 and replaced it with the ES-300 in 1940. Granted, the essence of the ES-150 – the “Charlie Christian” pickup – was better than most of the competition, but the guitar itself was a tentative, low-risk entry into the market. Gibson’s top acoustic archtops at the time were 17″ and 18″ wide and had fancier inlays than the ES-150’s pearl dots. From the back it looked cheaper – like an outdated L-50 with a flat back. Without the pickup, it looked like it had started as an L-50, with a 16-inch body width and dot inlays. Gibson’s first standard-style or “Spanish” electric, the ES-150 of 1936, was a plain and inexpensive instrument. Then, as now, the ES-5 is easily identifiable by its three pickups, but that is only one of many elements that, when taken together, made a statement to the guitar world that Gibson recognized the electric guitar as an established part of our musical culture and, moreover, that Gibson was fully committed to the electric guitar. The culmination of this effort was the be-all, end-all of electric guitar design in 1949 – the ES-5. But when production resumed in 1946, Gibson made up for the lost time with a flurry of innovations. Gibson, like all American guitarmakers, had to shut down electric guitar production for three years during World War II. Photo: Billy Mitchell, courtesy Gruhn Guitars.

1957 gibson es 125