This mid to late 1930s Gibson ES-185 amp is in beautiful and remarkably original condition.The EH-185 was the top-of-the-line amplifier in Gibson's lineup at the time. The "EH" designation stood for "Electric Hawaiian" and was the companion to Gibson's lap steel guitar so popular in Hawaiian music at that time. "Regular" electric guitar playing simply hadn't been invented yet. Jazz legend Charlie Christian single handedly invented the genre of electric guitar on an amp like this.This really is the Big Bang that spawned every electric guitar player that came after.
As you might expect with a 90 year old tube amplifier, some basic maintenance was done to keep it running safely. The electrolytic capacitors have been replaced, most of the old dried out wax/paper signal capacitors are replaced, and the amp has been upgraded to a grounded 3-prong power cord, the primary AC wiring is up to modern code.
Other than that the amp is very original and in really good shape. It's loaded with period correct vintage tubes and the original field coil speaker has been reconed to original specs and works flawlessly.
If you have never experienced one of these amplifiers from the dawn of electric guitar, you might be very surprised at how these things sound. Not only do they produce a beautiful, thick, warm-yet-clear Jazz tone, they also absolutely rip when you turn them up. The secret here is plugging into the "Microphone" channel. There is a lot of gain here, the tone is instant early ZZ-Top. Perfect for Blues and Rock. It's remarkable how fully formed electric guitar came into being. In many ways, amps didn't ever get "better" than this.
A perfect home and studio amp, this could be the corner stone of a cool tube amp collection.
This amp is fully ready to go and needs no work. We do recommend running these early amps on something like a BrownBox or Variac. They are happiest and sound their very best at 110V, as was standard in the 1930s.
