The Last Bass Outpost

At the least they give you the earliest possible date the bass was produced.

well, again, it only gives an earliest date it was shipped. A bass can be assembled, and left in the factory without hardware... This didn't generally happen with EB0s and EB3s, but the obscure models, later EB0Fs for example often have a weird mix of parts from different years.

I have seen them with '65 pots and '66 pots - so far I have not seen any with '68 or '69 pots - but admittedly I haven't checked that many - Scott did yours have '68 pots?

A big change happened at Gibson in mid-late '66, Stan Rendell took over from Ted McCarty - he changed the Gibson's production system from one in which guitars were simply built, and hopefully sold, to one where guitars were built ONLY when ordered. The first non revs were built before his time - ie without any orders. We all know the stories of unsold Tbirds, so I doubt there were many orders coming in in '68 for them to build more...

It could be that they were all produced in '65 and '66, and slowly shipped, as required, potentially with hardware added in the year they were shipped?
Until a clearly later one comes up it's hard to be sure that there are indeed later ones...

According to Jules site, the production breakdown is as follows:
1966= 361, 1967=0, 1968=67, 1969=7.

Yes, but remember these are the shipping, not production figures - when guitars are selling well (eg the EB0 at this time) they pretty much shipped them as fast as they built them. When they were not selling well (eg NR tbirds) they may have sat around for months or even years. Do the 7 '69 Tbirds have '69 pots? I don't know for sure, and I actually suspect not...

I believe the Grabber pickup is single coil - there are several misleading and contradictory bits of Gibson literature that suggest it is a humbucker, and one that categorically states it to be single coil (a late seventies Gibson pickup leaflet). Let me try and find it for you all. And I might put a bid on that Gripper too, if it stays at £350
http://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/parts/pickup/

$750 isn't too bad at all for store. They tend to go for between $600 and $800 for relatively nice ones on ebay.

I've only seen the Ripper with that early body shape. My belief is that the Grabber does not exist with this shape, at least as a production model.

According to Grabber shipping figures there were 200 or so Grabbers shipped in '74, and one in '73. The '75 catalogue was printed in late '74, and the new body style is shown there. They don't show up in price lists until Jan '75. I have Gibson letters from Dec '74 describing it as brand new. So I feel the '74s were built right at the end of '74 and had the new-style bodies.

But the one in '73 (if it actually exists) was presumably a prototype Bill Lawrence made at the same time as he did the Ripper, potentially with the old shape. Prototypes were usually done in racks of 8 if they were to be shipped/demonstrated, and there was a long wait until more were made in '74. Furthermore, a patent application for the Grabber was filed in Aug '74 under Bruce Bolen's name. So I do have my doubts about this one being real, or at least being something that was actually shipped to a customer. If it does exist, it may even have other early Ripper features (set neck?). Did Bill just design a sliding pup, and suggest it for a new model?

The earliest Grabber I have a record of with a black headstock was a 6 digit, most likely 1975
The latest Grabber I have a record of with a natural headstock was an 8 digit, very early 1978

So in summary, IMHO Grabbers didn't change much, and with the exception of different finish options in the early eighties, but to be proven wrong would make my day!

IMHO that clip is probably the very best thing on youtube

Whilst I have not given this any more than a cursory look, it seems legit to me. I have saved pics of another from '65 with the same finish from a few years back.