[mwedge]

http://i400.photobucket.com/albums/pp81 ... IM2831.jpg
http://i400.photobucket.com/albums/pp81 ... IM2832.jpg
http://i400.photobucket.com/albums/pp81 ... IM2835.jpg

I'm trying to find out the year and model of my Gibson Bass. I have found one on ebay that looks identical and it is listed as a 74-76 sb300, and their is one on here that is listed as a 71 sb400. A person from Gibson said he thinks it is a 66 or 68, but hasn't said anything about the model. Some of the info that I have found said according to the serial number it is a 70-72. I know it is all original. Please help me, it is driving me nuts!!

[Dave W]

The SB-300 is short scale (nominally 30 1/2"), the SB-400 is long scale. I can't tell for sure from your photo but from the bridge placement it looks like the long scale. If the distance from the nut to the 12th fret just a shade over 17" then you have an SB-400.

These were made from 1971-73. You might be able to pin it down further if you can see the 7 digit date codes on the potentiometers.

[mwedge]

The pot code is 1346615. A person from Gibson said according to the code it is either a 66 or 68.

[Dave W]

That's a pot manufactured by Centralab (now Philips-Mepco/Centralab) in the 15th week of 1966. But your bass can't be that early because they weren't made that early. If that's an original pot then it was new old stock that had been in a parts bin for several years.

It's known that Fender bought a big surplus of pots in 1966, you can see them on guitars and basses into the 70s, especially on certain models. I've never heard that Gibson did the same.

[jules]

Hi,

Your bass is an SB300 - short scale - the long scale ones had their bridge slightly beyond the tone knob - made between 1971 and 1973 - so definately not 60s, though the serial numbers were everywhere at this time, so this bass is effectively undatable. However SB shipping figures show that 85% of them were made in '71, so you could make a guess at that being the year.

Don't ask Gibson; the person that they employ to answer such questions knows none of the caveats and exceptions about dating your instrument. You might as well ask your mother.

The pots are interesting. My SB400 also has '66 pots, but with a very odd manufacture code BD6626. No idea who made these, however the part numbers (also on the pot) are BA811-3701 - which was certainly used on the Kalamazoo KG guitars and - 811-8701, which I don't recall seeing before. Both are 250k. Note, they do not seem to have been used on the Kalamazoo basses (with the EB humbucker), at least on all the models I have examined.

What part numbers are on yours? Anyone else have an SB300/SB400 who would care to share pot codes?

According to the 1971 Gibson parts list, these SB basses (and the SG100, SG200, SG250 and ES320 guitars) use a 500k pot, part number 70024. Note, all of these instruments use the same single coil pickups.

As Dave said your pots are indeed centralab '66s, and it is my opinion that these pots are leftovers from the Kalamazoo range of guitars, which were made en masse between 1965 and 1969. They actually made 24000 of them in those 4 years (in comparrison, Gibson only sold 22000 EB0s in the 20 years between 1959 and 1979)

Were they particularly suited to single coil pickups? The fact that they don't seem to have been used on the KB bass, sort of implies this, though perhaps they are out there...

They certainly had shorter shafts 9/16" rather than 3/4" - so would not have been useable via a typical body mount - rather needing to go through a control plate or scratchguard.

I would not be surprised to see these pots on melody maker guitars from around that time too, as they too were low-end models with single coils, and scratchplate mounted controls.