One of the Earliest Gibson EB-2s

One of the earliest of the EB-2 basses. This guitar weighs just 8.30 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of slightly under 1 11/16 inches and a nice, short scale length of 30 1/2 inches. Laminated maple body, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 20 frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl crown inlay. Two-on-a-side banjo-style tuners with white plastic tulip-shaped buttons. One black plastic-covered PAF humbucker pickup with a huge output of 16.60k. Five-layer (black/white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus a two-way tone booster selector switch and jack input, all on the lower treble bout. Gold plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. Combination bar bridge/stud tailpiece. The serial number ("A 31381") is stamped on the back of the headstock and on an oval orange label inside the bass f-hole. This guitar has had a professional, invisible headstock repair (only visible under a black light). There is some nice body checking, the bare minimum of belt buckle wear on the back, and an area of wear on the top of the body just by the "G" string near the bridge where the player has rested his finger, and a few other small surface marks, mainly confined to the back and the edges. Otherwise the guitar is in near fine condition -- but we have given it only an 8.00 because of the headstock repair. Housed in the original Gibson black hardshell case with dark blue plush lining (8.00). One of 203 Sunburst EB-2s. We believe that the transition from banjo-style tuners occurred sometime in 1959, so it's probable that only some of 203 have the same specs as this guitar (we've seen 1959s without banjo tuners).

"Gibson's second electric bass model established a pattern that would hold true for almost all of the company's basses from that date forward. The EB-2 of 1958 was a 'partner' to a similar guitar model -- in this case, the semi-hollow ES-335. The EB-2 was, in effect, an electric bass neck (complete with banjo-style tuners) glued onto the double-cutaway, 'thinline' body of the ES-335. The earliest model had a single-coil pickup with a brown-plastic cover, but this was soon replaced by a large humbucker with a black-plastic cover...A pushbutton 'baritone' (i.e., bass-cut) control was added in 1959, and conventional right-angle tuners replaced the banjo tuners in 1960...The original EB-2 was dropped in 1961 and reintroduced, with a metal pickup cover, in 1964. A double-pickup version, the EB-2D, joined the line in 1966...Both models were discontinued in 1972. Although not commercially successful, Gibson's short-scale, semi-hollow basses -- and such similar models as the Epiphone Rivoli and Guild Starfire Bass -- were popular with many '60s rock bands because they were easy to play and offered different tonal possibilities than Fender basses" (Jim Roberts, American Basses, pp. 73-74).