The 18-inch wide Super 400, introduced in 1934, was not merely Gibson’s top archtop model in the 1930s, it was an industry leader in a movement toward larger-bodied guitars – acoustic guitars, that is.

On the electric side, the first Gibson electrics, which appeared in 1936, were not as big, not as highly ornamented, and did not require the same level of craftsmanship as the acoustic models. A standard Gibson electric was apparently just not good enough for the player who custom-ordered this Super 400 with a pickup in 1940.

Gibson had recently developed it’s first pickup with height-adjustable polepieces for the ES-300 model, and it was easy enough to rout the top of a Super 400 for the electronics. The model name on the label, Super 400 Premier EN, includes all of this guitar’s special features: Premier for cutaway body, an option introduced in 1939; E for Electric; and N for Natural finish, introduced in 1938.

Despite the obvious potential, it would be over a decade before Gibson offered an electric Super 400 as a catalog model.