Hammond E100
A console organ with 25-note pedals, two full keyboards, a rhythm section, and a banjo switch.
Overview
Most of what the archive can say about the Hammond E100 comes from a single contemporary trade-press notice. Read it closely, because the E100 it describes is not the organ most players picture when they hear "Hammond." This is a spinet-adjacent console built for working groups, announced alongside a transportable version of the M102. It was pitched at players who wanted the Hammond name in a package they could move and afford.
The feature list is where the E100 gets strange and specific. According to the announcement, it carries 25-note pedals and two full keyboards. That is a proper console layout, not a single-manual portable. It also has what the report calls a complete rhythm section, with sounds for wire brushes and cymbals built in. Then there is the detail that makes collectors do a double-take: the E100 reportedly let a player call up the sound of a banjo and a Hawaiian guitar at the flick of a switch. That is not a typo, and you won't find it on a B-3. It points at the group organist covering pop and dance-band material, not the jazz player chasing drawbar purity.
The announcement also notes a built-in sustaining unit, which the smaller E300 in the same range did without. With the rhythm section, that makes the E100 the better-equipped of the pair. The E300 reportedly sold for less because it dropped both the rhythm section and the sustaining unit. Buyers weighing the two were paying extra for the extras, not for a bigger or more capable tone generator.
Output is quoted at 50 watts, and the price at announcement was 899 gns. The transportable M102 came in at 645 gns and the stripped E300 at 799 gns, so the E100 topped the group of instruments named in the notice. The report adds that the organs had not yet left the factory, but orders for several hundred were already in hand and Hammond expected strong sales once stock was available.
One player's use of the E100 survives in the same trade coverage. Hugh Banton of Van der Graaf Generator was reported to be running a Farfisa Professional alongside a Hammond E100, feeding both through phase-splitters into separate stereo channels, then through reverb units into a pair of Hi-Watt 200 amplifiers. The pedalboards were split off to a Radford 200-watt stereo hi-fi amp driving custom Fane horn enclosures. That is not a stock setup by any measure.
The archive has little else. There are no confirmed production years, no dimensions, no weight, no service documentation, and no independent bench measurements. What is here comes from announcement copy and a single player's rig. If a serial plate or a dated catalog page turns up, this page will grow.
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Related Models
- Hammond A100
- Hammond B-3 (1954-1974)
- Hammond C-3 (1955-1974)
- Hammond G-100
- Hammond H100
- Farfisa Compact Deluxe (1968-1972)
- Farfisa Compact Duo (1966-1969)
- Farfisa Compact (1964-1972)
- Farfisa Organ
- Farfisa Professional Duo (1967-1970)