I am bidding on the 1960's Thunderbird bass pickup cover on Ebay

[Bionic-Joe]

Hey brothers, Just a heads up that I am the guy who is bidding on the badly needed NOS Thunderbird pickup cover on Ebay. Plan on sending it to Seymour and have MJ do it up. Another 8 string Non-Reverse in the works. Still need a Hamer 8 string bridge. Baz

[Bionic-Joe]

GOT IT!!!!

[sniper]

good, glad you got it. abut when are you going to see if they can be repopped? i would be interested in one or two of those.

[Bionic-Joe]

Not sure but will DEFINIATly let everyone know

[godofthunder]

 Well lets see it !

[drbassman]

I'm sure a bunch of us would buy some if you could do it Joe and keep the price reasonable.

[Bionic-Joe]

Well, I am a Model Maker and can utilize some resources that some of us may not have tried. I know Tony Carl did a KILLER job on his covers, so good that he sold out of them!!! But i just want to give it a shot. If not, I can always have MJ make a new pickup.

[drbassman]

Tony's were nice, but the price was a bit over the top.  I bought 3 and it tapped me out!

[Bionic-Joe]

No guarantees but I can't for the life of me think that it would cost $30,000.00 for a tool. What about those breath mints?? Aren't those the same material??? Or close???

[Barklessdog]

$30,000 here would translate to about $7,000 in China and they could have it done tomorrow

[sniper]

Stamping molds are expensive no doubt. I used to work in an idustry that used them BUT: I think Tony ran too little a run and tried to make it back too quick. If he had done what GreatDealz did with the NOS stuff and tried to sell them on the bay like Ken did with his stainless covers, I do believe the price would have been way less.

When one uses a stamp mold always go for volume!!! It pays in the long run for such an expense as this apparantly was and raw materials such as polished stainless vs chrome is always a factor. In Ken's case it cut out the whole extra step of chroming. It might not be original but it was acceptable. A run of 1000 at 40$ a pop would have cleared his cost and another run would have made him some money or might have gotten him a job as a supplier to Seymour.

My everloving two cents, speculative FWIW.