Gibson ES-5 Switchmasters

Did the ES-5 inspire the Strat as well as Peter Green's famously phasey in-between tones?

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"The earlier example isn't technically a Switchmaster for the very obvious reason that it doesn't have a switch, but these are both three-pickup Gibson ES-5 models. Gibson introduced the three-pickup ES-5 in 1949 and described it as 'the supreme electronic version of the famed Gibson L-5'. It's widely accepted that the ES-5 was the first production guitar with three pickups. Gibson only made 22 examples that year and one of them was to become the instrument that T-Bone Walker used throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

"I don't think that the natural finish became an option until 1951, which is when the first of these guitars was built. I have the original bill of sale and Gibson shipped it out to Germany to a guy whose surname was actually Gibson. He was in the armed services and stationed out there at the time.

“The construction details are all very standard. The 17-inch wide body is maple and it has the laminated maple neck construction with an ebony ’board and pearl marker blocks. The early ones had the same three-diamond tailpiece as ES-175s, but on the ES-5s they were gold-plated. They later went to the fancier engraved ES-5 tailpiece with all the curly lines, but both guitars have floating rosewood bridges with the wound G-string compensation.