An Original Cherry Red Slab-Bodied, Banjo-Style Tuners, EB-0 Bass With Factory Mute Assembly.

1960 Gibson EB-0 Bass.

This original slab-bodied EB-0 bass weighs just 8.10 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 30 1/2 inches. Solid mahogany body, one-piece mahogany neck, and unbound Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 20 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl crown inlay. Two-layer black over white plastic 'bell-shaped' truss-rod cover with two screws. Two-on-a-side Kluson banjo-style tuners with rear-facing white plastic plastic keys. Serial number ("0 8260") stamped on the back of the headstock in black. One dual-coil "Sidewinder" bass pickup with four adjustable pole-pieces (mounted across the middle of the pickup), an output of 30.10k and a black plastic cover secured by four screws. Black plastic pickguard with six screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Black plastic bonnet-shaped knobs with white markings. The pots are dated "137 936" (September 1959). Side-mounted jack socket on a square of black/white/black laminated plastic secured by four screws. Black plastic control panel cover on the back of the guitar with two screws. Combination "wrap-over" bar bridge/tailpiece with intonation adjustment and 'Factory' Gibson 'mute' assembly. All hardware nickel-plated. Very minor fading to the body and a few small surface marks on the body and the neck are all that prevent this bass from being near mint. A spectacular and totally original example - certainly the best that we have ever seen. Housed in a later (seventies) Gibson four-latch shaped black hardshell case with purple plush lining (9.00).

This is the only Banjo-Tuner EB-0 with factory 'mute' assembly that we have ever seen… the mute assembly greatly emphasizes the 'thump' that is associated with these early Gibson basses.

""A new economy-priced bass by Gibson --- that's wonderful news in the world of frets." Bass-wise, the EB-0 (a pseudo Les Paul double-cutaway bass) was introduced in 1959, and replaced the original EB-1. It utilized the same standard 30 1/2" scale with twenty frets and a rosewood fingerboard. Translucent cherry-red was the specified finish, and most that we've seen had the sharper radius edge rout. The control knobs were adjacent to a nickel bridge set down at the end of the body. The bass humbucking pickup ( by Seth Lover) as first used on the EB-2 had the dual-coil "Sidewinder" design, with poles set in the middle and a black plastic cover. "The bass pickup was one of the most difficult to design, because you wanted to get that very low response, and the average pickup wouldn't do it. It had to be a special kind of pickup. "Each coil received a whopping 12,500 turns, and all were set on their sides. This massive output restricted the highs and gave the instrument a deep and powerful tone --- especially being placed by the neck. A rather large, single-ply pickguard covered the lower portion of the body --- even though most of the playing was done on the topside! Expensive (according to the Gazette) Kluson "Waverly" -style banjo tuning pegs adorned the headstock into 1960, when the standard big-keyed nickel Klusons arrived…
During 1959, 123 were built, while 342 were shipped in 1960. One fun bass!" (Robb Lawrence. The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915-1963 (pp. 208-209).

"Soon after the original EB-1 was dropped, Gibson introduced another solidbody model: the EB-0. Its double-cutaway mahogany body had the same shape as that of the recently revised Les Paul Jr. guitar, and the neck was the same one used on the EB-1 and EB-2. The pickup and other features were, unsurprisingly, the same as those found on Gibson's other basses. In 1961, the EB-0's body changed to the pointed-horn 'SG-style' shape -- once again, in lockstep with changes in the company's guitar line. This single-pickup 4-string and its double-pickup brother, the EB-3 (with 4-position 'Varitone' switch), were Gibson's most popular models for the ensuing decade" (Jim Roberts, American Basses, p. 74).