"The House of the Rising Sun"

This wonderful lightweight bass weighs just 8.20 lbs. and has a nut width of just over 1 1/2 inches and a short scale length of 30 1/2 inches. Single-bound laminated maple top, back, and sides, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 20 frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Epiphone" logo and vertical oval pearl inlay. Two-on-a-side Kluson right-angle tuners with large cloverleaf metal buttons. Single multi-magnet, double-coil humbucking pickup with four polepieces and a huge output of 14.73k. Tortoiseshell pickguard with silver Epiphone "E" logo. Two controls (one volume, one tone), a two-way metal bass/baritone switch, and jack socket, all on body. Gold plastic bell-shaped knobs. Inside the bass f-hole is an Epiphone (Kalamazoo, Michigan) rectangular blue label with "Rivoli" and "EBV-232-N" typed in black and the serial number ("430825") stamped in black. The serial number also impressed in blind on the back of the headstock. Some light finish checking and a small 'worm' mark from a guitar cable left in the case at some time. There is a small area of surface loss on the side of the bass horn and a couple of small marks on the back of the neck behind the fourth fret where the surface has been eroded. Overall, a wonderful example, in near exceptionally fine (9.00) condition, of this extremely rare 'blond' bass guitar - as played by Chas Chandler of The Animals. Housed in its original Epiphone black softshell case with orange plush lining (8.75).

"The New York-based Epiphone company was bought by Gibson in 1957. One of the first so-called 'Gibson Epiphone' products was the Rivoli Bass of 1959, virtually identical to Gibson's EB-2...The Rivoli proved especially popular with 1960s British bassists such as The Animals' Chas Chandler" (Tony Bacon and Barry Moorhouse, The Bass Book, p. 19).