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.
Bill Hite said,
April 19, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
I may know where the other one is.
I have, in my possession, a very similar bass. Mine is a little lighter in color and has both of the knobs on the same side close to each other. To all outward appearances it may be the one i”ve seen pictured in an article by Mikael Jansson and Scott Malandrone on the web site storycode 10163.
If I can get an E Mail address, I’ll send a few pictures for your opinion.
Thank you,
Bill Hite