'79 Sabre? Mystery Bass/Employee Bass?

fretwear · #1 02-21-2010, 02:09 PM

Not sure what to call this one? So here's a description, I'll do my best to be right on with it. Here's how it came to me, around 12 lbs on the bath scale, body loaded with a Sabre bridge early ser # C001553, Sabre control plate, pots are dated Oct. 1979,(not sure what all the controls do but it all seems to work) correct chrome battery cover, micro tilt with three bolt MM neck plate. I was told the bridge PU is a Stingray, solder looks to be original so it may of the same vintage. Neck PU is a 1980 G&L L-1000 w/large hex pole pieces, you can see this isn't original by the solder and the router pocket shows it's been altered slightly to accept the shape of the G&L PU. It had a G&L L-1000 neck dated July 22, 1980. The neck had a killer Ebony board, but the trussrod was broken. The neck pocket fit like a glove- had me wondering if it wasn't the original neck to the body. The body routes look to be correct when compared to pics on musicmanbass.org
Some odd things with the body: body is made of Oak, there was never a pic guard on the bass, and there is no date stamp to be found on the body. Some think that this may be an employee bass from the '79/'80 MM/G&L era? With no way to proove this it remains a mystery bass.
I found a 3 bolt Moses replacement neck, this neck has the 3+1 head stock! This neck is really very rare, the Moses people say that they made less than 10 of these before being shut down for copyright issues. The neck is missing one of the two markers at the 12th fret, but doesn't affect how it plays. Frets are in great shape has a fresh set of Hipshot 3+1 tuners. Just had a pro setup and the bass recieved a clean bill of health.
Plays great and sounds XXXL! Sure to satisfy. Ships in a decent tweed case
$850.00 delivered SOLDlower 48, PP no prob discount for lacal sale and delivery

GeneralElectric · #2 02-21-2010, 02:15 PM

Its probably a frankenstein bass. The G&L neck fit because it has the same dimensions as a MM neck. Do you have any pictures?

I think I saw this bass on CL a long while ago.

fretwear · #3 02-21-2010, 02:20 PM

some pics...

spideyjg · #4 02-21-2010, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeneralElectric

Its probably a frankenstein bass. The G&L neck fit because it has the same dimensions as a MM neck. Do you have any pictures?

I think I saw this bass on CL a long while ago.

Yep, This thing.

fretwear · #5 02-21-2010, 02:38 PM

That's the one, it took awhile to get it running again, but I think it was worthy of a rescue. As we talked before the test is in how it sounds, it passed the test.