"The 'Sixties' Bass"

1967 Gibson EB-2

This super-playing bass weighs just 9.00 lbs. and has a nice narrow nut width of just over 1 1/2 inches and a short scale length of 30 1/2 inches. Laminated maple body, one-piece mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 20 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl crown inlay. Two-on-a-side Kluson right-angle tuners with large cloverleaf metal buttons. One very strong "patent number" humbucking pickup with chrome cover and an output of 13.65k. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus push-button bass boost, all on lower treble bout. Black plastic ribbed-side conical-shape "Witch Hat" knobs. Combined bar bridge/stop tailpiece. Original metal hand-rest secured by two screws. All hardware chrome-plated. The serial number "309221" is stamped on the back of the headstock and on an oval orange 'Kalamazoo' label inside the bass f-hole. There is some fine finish-checking and a miniscule amount of belt-buckle wear on the back (nothing through the finish). There are a few small marks or indentations on the top and back and a few small marks on the back of the neck. The pickgurd has been removed long ago and the original complete mute assembly is in the case pocket. Overall this fine fifty-two year old bass is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. Housed in the original (heavily worn) Gibson black hardhell case with velvet lining (7.50).

"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).