Hollowbody Bass Archive » Historical Significance

A stroll through the USPTO, courtesy Google

Brandon — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:03:20 +0000

While cleaning up the hard drive on my laptop, I came across a list of patents I’d found via Google’s Patent Search. Only one of them has anything to do with hollowbody basses, but they’re fun to look at.

If you find any cool/historic/unique patents that I missed, post a link in the comments!

Up first, “Electric Bass Guitar and Elastomeric Bridge Therefor“:

Gibson/Epiphone/Norlin Patents:

Epiphone ‘Scroll’ Bass

Leland Sklar Signature Bass

Gibson Victory Bass

Peavey Patents:

T-40 Bass

“Razer” Body Shape

Fender Patents:

The Classic – 1959 Precision Bass

P-Bass Pickup

Fender/Squier Bullet Bass

Starcaster Headstock Design

Modulus:

Graphite Bass Neck

Mosrite:

Guitar & Bass Design

Kent:

Hollowbody Guitar Design

Patent art can sometimes be crudely drawn, or in some cases, drawn well but just plain ol’ funny. Check out this image from Patent #7030304:

Gibson’s First Electric Bass (For really real.)

Brandon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:57:21 +0000

A few years ago, I visited the EMP and was able to see what I thought was Gibson’s first electric hollowbody bass. Turns out I was actually looking at Gibson’s second electric bass.

Oddly enough, the University of South Dakota is home to the National Music Museum, which houses over 10,000 musical instruments from all over the world and from various time periods. One of those instruments is a 1938 Gibson Upright Electric Bass prototype. This bass has a small (for a bass) ‘electric frying pan-esque’ body shape and a Charlie Christian pickup. According to the description the neck is the same type used on the Gibson Mandobass.

Click here to see the full description on NMM’s website.

The NMM site has tons of information and images about the instruments in its collections. I’d recommend hitting the homepage and meandering your way through the site. It’s a pretty interesting collection.