Gibson Vintage Bass Guitars

Gibson Vintage Bass Guitars

Gibson is a well-known musical instrument company in the United States, with origins dating back to the 1890s. They are known for their acoustic and electric stringed instruments, primarily in guitars and mandolins. To a lesser extent, Gibson also makes banjos, dobro resonator guitars, electronics, and basses.

The term "vintage" usually references a pedigree of more than 20 years. Given this rating, Gibson has numerous bass guitar models in their history that can certainly qualify as vintage collectibles. Most Gibson models introduced prior to the 1970s were counterparts of Gibson electric guitar models. The primary ones in the market are:

• EB Series bass: The EB series bass models were early Gibson Bass guitars. Sunburst or natural wood finishes like brown or cherry were the usual color options.
• EB-0: This bass had the double cutaway body shape of the Gibson SG guitar with a single fat humbucker (often called "mudbucker") and a short scale.
• EB-1: With a violin shape, this bass model also had a single mudbucker.
• EB-2: A semi-hollow double cutaway bodied instrument, similar to the Gibson ES-335 guitar, the EB-2 had a single mudbucker.
• EB-3: With a short scale, an SG body, a mudbucker at the fingerboard, a smaller pickup at the bridge, and a Varitone selector.

Later EB-1 and EB-2 models would be offered with two pickup options during the latter part of their production runs.

The Gibson Thunderbird Bass, which shared the same offset body shape as Gibson’s Firebird, had two T-bird pickups, a 34-inch scale, and was one of the first mass-production bass guitars to have a neck-through construction design. Primarily available in Sunburst, some T-birds in white or black were also offered.

Les Paul basses initially debuted briefly with the double cutaway Les Paul Special slab mahogany shape, but it went into regular production in 1969 when Gibson introduced its Les Paul Recording and Signature models. The semi-hollow Signature became the prototype for what would later become Epiphone’s Jack Casady signature bass, which has the same body and neck but with a customized pickup. Other Gibson bass models include the Triumph. Brown, orange, sunburst, black, and Signature gold were the main color options.

The Gibson Ripper Bass, G-3 bass, and Grabber bass were early Gibson models to be totally unrelated to a guitar model in the catalog. Featuring maple construction, new Bill Lawrence designed pickups and an original double cutaway profile. The last of the collectible vintage Gibson bass guitar models is the RD bass, a counterpart of the Gibson RD guitar, which has a vaguely T-bird-type profile and has seen a resurgence in recent years.