Are my Fender Roscoe Beck knobs original???

[Music_for_life]

In all the pictures I´ve seen at the web, the knobs are rounded and metallic colour or black saying fender. Mine are similar to the metallic ones but they are black.
Are mines original???
Here are some pics of the knobs..

[MarthaSamira]

You mean knobs...

Probably not original.

[Music_for_life]

bump...
I have seen some with fender telecaster chromes and some with fender hat knobs...
Which are orginal??

[Munjibunga]

I don't think they're original. Here's a picture of my RBV I found on Basschat.co.uk. It has the original knobs on it. Fender may have changed the knobs on later models or the 4-strings.

[ShoeManiac]

Indications are that they probably aren't the original knobs. I've got a 1998 RB V that I bought new, and mine has the black plastic knobs, too.





From images I've seen of later model Roscoe Beck 4's and 5's, those had chrome Telecaster style knobs. Fender traditionally will have the knobs match the rest of the hardware (provided they're metal knobs).

[1958Bassman]

So, the Roscoe Beck models sold by Fender don't have a piece of acrylic/Plexi between the pickups, like the ones he uses? Hmmm. He uses it as a thumb rest between positions.

[ShoeManiac]

I was actually a little surprised to see the state of Roscoe's personal bass when I saw him performing on the Today Show with the Dixie Chicks. He had this bass with him and at first I wasn't sure who the bass player was. But I checked things out and found out that it was in fact Roscoe on bass with them.



The maple fingerboard was never an option on production RB 5 basses. However, it did become an option on the RB IV when it was introduced. And the plastic ramp/thumbrest was never standard, either.

BTW, that's actually a shot of Roscoe playing with Leonard Cohen at the Coachella festival. He was serving as both bass player & music director during his stint with Leonard Cohen.

[smeet]

I wish Fender sold them with the plexi ramp. It does seem weird that he had to customize his signature model to match his style. I'm going to make one of these, but it seems that plexi is a bit hard to cut cleanly.

Here's my 1998 RBV's knobs, the knurled plastic without numbers. I think they are original. It seems Fender used a number of different types of knobs on the model.

[Templar]

Originally Posted by 1958Bassman

So, the Roscoe Beck models sold by Fender don't have a piece of acrylic/Plexi between the pickups, like the ones he uses? Hmmm. He uses it as a thumb rest between positions.

My RBIV came with the plexi ramp.

[suvdecropp]

smeet: Fender used for RB basses in the first run of production those knobs:



after that they started to use those knobs:



so your knobs are not "factory run"

It's a shame that Fender discounted this bass, I'm looking for RB IV for 5 months without any effect