Lap Steel with Tube amp, 40's model - need make and value

[firehousemusic]

A nice little old lady brought in her husband's (RECENTLY DECEASED) lap steel with matching 40 watt amp in the case, great condition, included original stand, cable, everything. I can't identify the manufacturer or the value, and I would like to help her out. She said it was purchased new in the 1940's


View images at:

http://gallery.me.com/jesus_freak1

[VintAxe]

[firehousemusic]

[VintAxe]

Silvertone sounds like a good guess to me. I don't have any 1940's Sears catalogs but I do have a 1950.

Several similarities between yours and the 1950 model.

[Spud1950]

The lap steels in that catalog page were actually made by Harmony. Scroll down on this page to see pictures.




I think that the lap steel in question may have also been made by Harmony in that it appears to have the same pickup that was used on this Harmony model.

[Spud1950]

Well,I found exactly what the lap steel is. It's an Epitome. The Harmony connection was a good guess, but not correct. It does use the same DeArmond pickup that Harmony used,but it is a different manufacturer. Here's some info.

"Epitome Steels were originally manufactured for Musical Institutions that were very popular during the Hawaiian Music craze from the 1930's to the 1950's. Most of the Institutions sold musical instruments door-to-door and hired local music teachers to teach the students in their homes or at a local music school. The students typically started on an acoustic Hawaiian Steel Guitar, then with the advent and popularity of electric Hawaiian Steel Guitars by the mid 1930's, students could graduate up to an electric such as an Epitome (or started on electric if the student desired to gamble the investment upon him/her being able to learn to play).


The pickup in the electric Epitome is a DeArmond "motel soap bar", famous in Harmony Stratotones being affectionately rediscovered by an increasing number of Players. These pickups have wonderfully compressed and warm tones (and really crank under higher amplifier gain). They were wound to about 6,000 turns with very fine wire. The fine wire gieves the pickup higher resistance which gives them their characteristic warm compressed tone. The DeArmond design was also for the coil to be shorter and wider to cover more of a guitar's strings sound characters more dynamically, and indeed it does.


The Epitome Steel Guitars were made by a now little known violin and piano company who thus worked expertly with very good woods. Ironically, the standard paint finish put on these was a krinkle / "cracked" white with gold rubbed into the Krinkle / "cracks". "

I found one for sale with it's matching amp.



I have no idea how accurate the asking price for that package is,but you can typically get similar types of entry level vintage lap steels in nice condition made by various manufactuers on eBay for around $300. There's a lot of them for sale. The amp is definately worth more the the lap steel. I can't find anything about the amp you have. I can tell you that the 40 watts is not the output rating,it's what it operates on. Those little two or three tube vintage amps only put out around 5 watts.

Edit - Found another for sale, just the lap steel. Asking price is $399.99.





I think that's a bit high in todays market.Given that the original white finish on the one you're inquiring about has become so oxidized,I think somewhere between $275 to $300 for the would be a fair price.

[firehousemusic]