Sunburst RD with one day to go...

[Highlander]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-1978-GIBSON-ARTIST-RD-BASS-W-MOOG-ELECTRONICS-730-/110929271748?pt=Guitar&hash=item19d3e65bc4



Don't see this selling at this price...

[Highlander]

There's another one for sale in East London at an even more expensive price...

[Dave W]

Don't they typically sell for about half his opening bid?

[uwe]

I've noticed a decided rise in prices for Gibson basses on Ebay during the last year - it can't be "on account of the economy" (as Herr Springsteen put it so succinctly in The River), either supplies are getting rarer or there are more buyers, stuff you couldn't get arrested with like Flying Vs, RDs, Explorers, Rippers/Grabbers/G-3s in the past have now hiked prices by 25% at least or more. Not just the models from the sixties that were always expensive. I am not saying that you can no longer get these cheaper but you see them too often at high prices from different sellers to not wonder whether the market has moved considerably.

It would be ironic if my Gibsons, which I never collected with value in mind, would prove to be my most successful investment. Something for my heirs to worry about ...

[Highlander]

Time to review the insurance...

[Aussie Mark]

Don't they typically sell for about half his opening bid?

Not sunburst artists.  $2000 is around the money.

[uwe]

2000 bucks is steep unless it were either a factory fretless or an antique burst or a CMT. Regular sunburst wasn't that rare.

[Highlander]

How many RD's were built...? approx...

Of those, how many were fretless...?

[uwe]

In the lower thousands maybe? There was a time when they were pushed as Gibson's new future of bass and you did see them - unlike many other Gibson models - in the shops in the late seventies. And people who had never touched a Gibson before played them.

The fretless versions are rare, I've only seen a couple in the last ten years and I was outbid on a fretless tobacco burst RD Artist I had bid $ 2,200 on which I thought was a sure win when most RDs were selling at something like $ 900-1,200 on ebay. I'd say less than a hundred were built.

[Highlander]

Does that mean an item still on the (ultimate) wants list...?

[uwe]

Sure, ze Kolleckshün is reasonably representative as Gibson bass collections go, but there are, alas!, gaps ... fretless RD, fretless TBird (a few crept out in the nineties), Rebel Victory (corny if you don't play in Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute, but a must-have), ebony board Grabber, fretless G-3, fretless Victory Artist  and 5-String LP Standard. Not to mention the Holy Grail, ze Continental V ...

[Highlander]

Rebel Victory ...

I thought you were in Norway, not FINland... I know it's awfully close to Norway but they are not FIN's...

(okay, I know you're gonna tell us that there is some tweak in the build that will justify membership...)

[uwe]

No, indeed, to speak with Rob Halsford, I'd be Brrrreaking the wot? Brrrrreaaaaaaaaking the laaaaaaaaaaaw on that one. You don't know what it's liiiiiiiihiiiiike ...