AlanC Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 I recently received a Custom shop special order single pickup ES 175. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Good looking jazzbox. I have a question though. Was are the differences in general between a 175 and a 165, and specifically between a 165 and your single pickup 175? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dponzi Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Sorry if I'm butting in, but I think the difference is that a 165 has that floating pickup, where the single pickup 175 has a humbucker. Thats the only difference I could ever see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 But isn't the "Herb Ellis" a 165 with a single top mounted pickup. I always thought that the definition of a 165 was a 175 with one pickup, but then I guess they wouldn't have needed the 175D model designation. I'm sure someone will come along and clear this up for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanC Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 As I understand it a number of the earlier ES 175's were made with a single humbucker pickup. And that's the problem. To get a single pickup ES 175 they are usually from the '50's and as such are fairly expensive if they are in very good condition. They are also very rare. The ES 165 seems to be exactly the same as an ES 175 except for the tailpiece, a floating pickup and no tone control. Also the volume control on an ES 165 is on the pick plate and not cut into the actual body. In my case Gibson put on the same tailpiece as on current ES 165's. Initially I was disappointed with this but when I looked into it I found that many of the early ES 175's have the same tailpiece that I have. The thing that I don't understand is that ES165's are so much cheaper than ES 175's! What I can say given that I own both an ES 165 and an ES 175 is that the colour of the 175's are slightly different than what's on offer for 165's and the finish on the 175 is much better. I had lots of problems with my 165 - a broken tailpiece, pickup fell off, volume pot stopped working and the actual sound from the pickup was defective and I ended up swapping out the pickup. On the other hand the 175 is beautifully made and has a great sound! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Versatile Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Interesting Post !! I had one of the first ES165's about 15 years ago...a disappointing experience. The guitar was 'dry wired' for some pseudo vintage reason and promptly suffered from poor contacts and cutting out. The H/B pickup was mounted in the top and buzzed badly. Otherwise it was a beautiful instrument to look at with a stable neck and set up, although I would have prefered something more more genuinely classic to treasure for many decades as befits it's history.... .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob R Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 That guit is the same as a 1990's vintage Herb Ellis ES 165. They had one body mounted neck pickup and the fixtures were all gold. Plain top too. Neck extension mounted pickup was only added sometime in the past decade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanC Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 That guit is the same as a 1990's vintage Herb Ellis ES 165. They had one body mounted neck pickup and the fixtures were all gold. Plain top too. Neck extension mounted pickup was only added sometime in the past decade. I understand that in some cases earlier 165's do not have a floating pickup and have a single pickup installed into the body of the guitar. However some of the earlier 175's also had only one pickup. I'm pretty sure that they were called ES175SP's. It's not clear to me why Gibson produced in essence the same guitar with a different name. However the early acoustic L4's are very similar if not the same as J185's???!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob R Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Yes, some early 175s had a single P90 up to 1956 after which they switched to Seth Lover's new and innovative humbucker for 1957 production and beyond. That early 175 was essentially the same as a 125 with a cutaway and some bling added such as double parallelogram inlays, neck binding, and etc. Other than the ES295, a few double P90 ES175s have been produced since, but only in special runs. Those 175s are much sought after. Not sure about single bucker 175s, but then I don't know that much about guitars. I'm still a'learnin'. This is the place for it. Never mind. I've found quite a few es175sp and some on youtube as well. They sound wonderful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigsby'd Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 I understand that in some cases earlier 165's do not have a floating pickup and have a single pickup installed into the body of the guitar. However some of the earlier 175's also had only one pickup. I'm pretty sure that they were called ES175SP's. It's not clear to me why Gibson produced in essence the same guitar with a different name. However the early acoustic L4's are very similar if not the same as J185's???!!! J185s were flat tops. L4s have always been archtops. Historically ALL ES-175s had a single pickup. The ES-175D had two. They discontinued the ES-175 per se, and only made ES-175Ds for a while, and then dropped the D designation. When they reintroduced a single pickup 175, they simply changed that model's name to the 165. Sort of like when they started giving SG and LP specials humbuckers. When they offered a version with P-90s, they called them "Junior Specials", because the moniker "special" was then being used for a different guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PartsPvt Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 Alan..beautiful ES 175. Mine is a 1965 Single Pickup Humbucker that I have had for 35 years. Incredible sound and feeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ES345 Posted November 6, 2010 Share Posted November 6, 2010 Nice guitar Alan, best of luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valriver40 Posted November 27, 2010 Share Posted November 27, 2010 i have an earlier herb ellis with a humbucker,vol and tone control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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