EB1 needing a lot of TLC...

[Highlander]

Needs a refin... not that cheap and dubious age...?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-1953-Gibson-EB-1-EB1-Violin-Solid-Bass-Guitar-/110575829128?pt=Guitar&hash=item19bed54088

[uwe]

"EB-1's are known for their clear sound and excellent mid/high content."


Let's not get too carried away. Even with that overwound single coil of the fifties models it's not exactly approaching Ric territory.   A fifties EB-1 has three frequencies: low-mids, mid-mids and high-mids.  

Stripped as it is, this bass could be from anytime in the fifties, especially as the early ones sometimes didn't even feature a serial number. The stripping looks radical to me and the bass doesn't give the impression of having been in loving hands. I'd want to play it first before embarking on the project route with it.

[drbassman]

I'm with Uwe, this one is a bit questionable.  I never understood why people would sand off the distinguishing markings, like logo and SN, on a bass when tinkering with it.  Really dumb.  I have to say it's nice to see it doesn't have a p-bass pickup mounted on it!   

[Dave W]

This has been up for quite a while at this price, Baz linked to it in Terr's thread about his stolen 53.

Uwe's right, this one's not necessarily a 53. It appears legit, and it may not have had a s/n, but at that price and with no logo I would pass.

[dadagoboi]

I may be wrong but...

Check pictures number15,16, 20 & 23, it looks like some sort of headstock repair.  A sandwich maybe.  Bridge posts are not original, from a '66 or '67, note the massive bridge tilt due to the bigger spacing for thicker bridge.  Samy is scrawled at the top of the headstock and something else underneath.   The headstock cap looks like oak.

[Hornisse]

About 20 years ago at Musical Exchange here in Austin I saw a mangled EB bass that was missing most of its upper half.  I tried to recreate what was missing with some terrible photo shop skills.  It looked something like this.



They were asking $500 for it back then.  It was a shame that someone cut out that much of the beautiful Mahogany.  There was also a very clean '55 at a Pawn Shop on 1st and I-35 back then that they wanted $799 for.  Wish I had the scratch back then to buy that one.

[Dave W]

I may be wrong but...

Check pictures number15,16, 20 & 23, it looks like some sort of headstock repair.  A sandwich maybe.  Bridge posts are not original, from a '66 or '67, note the massive bridge tilt due to the bigger spacing for thicker bridge.  Samy is scrawled at the top of the headstock and something else underneath.   The headstock cap looks like oak.

Definite headstock repair. Not sure what the cap is, but it's not original.

[uwe]

At least it looks well done. The stripping is still barbaric, like someone wanted to refin it initially and then gave up. EB-1s do not deserve to look like Wishbasses.

[eb2]

I do like the off-set Schallers. 

I like the potential on this one.  It has been stripped, but you could finesse it back to fighting trim.  The hardest part to dig up is the poles on the bottom pup and its cover, so that is gold. It still has the deadly weapon version of the close-enough bridge.  The rest of the stuff - knobs, pickguard, banjo pegs - you can fake.  So I like that.

I have seen worse done to old EBs.

[Dave W]

It could be rescued and made to look very nice. I still wouldn't at that price considering what it doesn't have.