7 String Epiphone Electar Lap Steel, Circa 1941, $650

[Mark Leue]

Excellent plus condition, big fat pickup with smooth fat sound. Seven string lends itself to 6 or 9 tuning for jazzy sound. Great little steel. All original including felt backing. No case. The knobs appear to be non original.

[Rick Stratton]

Those knobs look to be original to me.
I have a 1940 6-string version. Same knobs.
Great sounding and playing instruments!

[David Mason]

Whoa... I have a 1941 six-string, serial #5563 with the exact same knobs! Though mine is the cheaper monochromatic one, and lacks the instructions for "soft", "medium", "loud"; "mellow", "normal" and "brilliant"... you get what you pay for, I guess.

I had thought MINE were replacements, and the originals were the eight-sided ones sometimes called... hatbox? Or pillbox, maybe? They must've phased them out in 1940, or it was a war thing or something. Oh goody! We can't all be unoriginal in the exact same way, unless we're writing love songs I spoze. So what rhymes with "knobs"....

[Mark Leue]

Great information there! I was going by the factory photos but if we both have the same "wrong" knobs, they're probably original! Thanks. Mark

[Gary S. Lynch]

I have owned two of these in the 6 string model.
Both mine had cream Carousel knobs.
My 36 Epiphone Model M had brown carousel knobs.

This link might help.
http://epiphonewiki.com/index.php/File: ... pSteel.jpg

[David Mason]

Yeah, it was the "carousel" knobs that I thought were standard. But this is the one I got, really cheaply because the "Epiphone" plate was missing from the neck so the seller listed it as just a "Electar."
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electar-Lap-Ste ... true&rt=nc

But even though the Epiphone Wiki lists the carousel knobs for "1939-1957", there's just no WAY that three aftermarket sellers would all have replaced them with the exact same aluminum knobs. Maybe Epiphone had shortages or something? Hmm. Bears inquiry. The one I got also usually had a white pickguard, and there's one on Ebay shaped like mine, with carousel knobs, pickguard & neckplate, asking price $895. And another 1941, WITH the carousel knobs...

[Rick Stratton]

I'm sorry, I messed-up.
I thought you were talking about the tuner knobs.
The volume and tone knobs on yours are definitely not stock!

[David Mason]

How do two 1941 Epiphones from opposite areas of the country end up with the exact same "wrong" knobs? (I actually think mine spent most of it's life in Canada.) Calculating the odds of that knob switch is beyond my little scope, at least.