Pickup identification help
- Thread starter Dentron
- Start date
mandoloony
Tele-Holic
That's a J-160E. Gibson created their own pickup to install at the factory; it was basically a P90 without a cover, where the poles poked through the top of the body.
Any luthier should be able to install an electric pickup like that, but it does require cutting an irreversible hole (or six) in the top.
Any luthier should be able to install an electric pickup like that, but it does require cutting an irreversible hole (or six) in the top.
Dentron
TDPRI Member
They don’t sell this pickup separately?
mandoloony
Tele-Holic
Ah, I edited my post just after - it's actually a P-90 without a cover and possibly extended poles. The plastic on top is just for looks. But you'd still need to drill holes in the top for the poles.
The kind of Pickup is pretty hard to find - it is a type of P90 - you can find them on eBay and AliExpress - I have no idea how it fits in - there is a surprising (to me) lack of information about the J160E pickup - including any replacements - I don't see how this fits into the guitar either.
If you can’t find one like this, there are many excellent soundhole pickups.
I use a Seymour Duncan Woody humbucking pickup. And you don’t need to put holes in the guitar.
I use a Seymour Duncan Woody humbucking pickup. And you don’t need to put holes in the guitar.
Red Ryder
Friend of Leo's
I use this ol De'Armond in my ol Epiphone works for me.
zombywoof
Friend of Leo's
Gibson was real proprietary about that P90. They would not even install it on acoustics such as the 1155E which they built for National the 1940s and 1950s and never provided Harmony whom they were under contract with to supply electronics with them. What others got were P13 pickups which Gibson had developed just prior to WWII and which were installed under the fingerboard extension.
Here is the P13 in my 1956 Harmony H40.
Here is the P13 in my 1956 Harmony H40.
mandoloony
Tele-Holic
The P-13 was not given to Harmony; the tooling to make it was sold to them. Harmony did not incorporate Gibson-built pickups into their guitars.
The National 1155E did not incorporate a P-90 because Valco made their own pickups - indeed, they built the entire neck on that model including the pickup.
The National 1155E did not incorporate a P-90 because Valco made their own pickups - indeed, they built the entire neck on that model including the pickup.
zombywoof
Friend of Leo's
Harmony never wound their own pickups although Gibson may have supplied them with parts to assemble them. That is the reason Harmony relied as heavily as they did on Dearmond-Rowe.
You are spot on though in that while Gibson initially supplied National with bodies and necks (albeit without truss rods) by the time the 1155E came out National had gone with their adjustable Stylist necks. Just a brain fart which seem to come more frequently with age. The reason for the connection between Gibson and National was that parent company C.M.I. also distributed Nationals.
But the point remains that Gibson kept that P90 pickup very close to the vest.
mandoloony
Tele-Holic
Oh, but they did wind their own. They did in the '30s and '40s before they ever used DeArmonds. They then wound P-13s into the 1960s. Gibson had stopped building them by 1946 (probably more like 1942) and sold them the jigs and dies for machining cores and stamping covers.
zombywoof
Friend of Leo's
As a start, as far as I know Harmony did not produce any guitars with pickups until possibly the very end of the 1930s. They first appear in the 1940 Sears (under the Supertone name) and Harmony catalogs which show one lap steel and one jazzbox. The pickups were huge three coil affairs. Who produced them though I do not have a clue.
Harmony did not start mass producing guitars with pickups until 1947 such as the H50 and H51 which sported pickups they labeled "Tone Emphasizers". Francois Demont among others always referred to the pickups as Gibson P13s. The luthier who worked on my H40 described it as a Gibson lap steel P13 with the "speed bump" cover plate removed. But that does not preclude Harmony having built them with the original Gibson tooling. It would be nice if somebody could produce the contract for suppling pickups or parts or if not some kind of documentation for sale of the tooling.
mandoloony
Tele-Holic
Those Supertones appeared in a 1936 Sears catalog (I think it was late that year, maybe a Christmas edition):
A 1940 Harmony catalog shows instruments under their own brand with the same 3-coil pickups (which were built in-house):
The electrics did disappear during the War years, so there was apparently a substantial gap, but their first electrics were far earlier than 1947.
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