The seller bought this used and remembers it as being a 1960, but I'm pretty sure they started making the thinner bodies and longer upper horn as this one has in '61. A couple of 4000 basses from 1962 have turned up with the old-style pickguard and bridges. I don't know for sure, but it seems that the current style of pickguard and the infamous Rick cast tailpiece/bridge/mute assembly started to appear in 1962. So far, the only known 1961 two-pickup Rick bass appears to have been an experimental prototype, "lavishly" illustrated in my book.