Gibson Bass?

[jime]

Did I just buy a fake?

I didn’t have interweb access when I bought this, probably should have passed, but<Forrest Gump voice> “I’m not a smart man”

I got home, and of course can’t find anything that looks like this on the web.

I didn’t notice the extra holes where the tuning pegs got replaced ‘til I got home and set it up.

 

[bradd]

Wow. A Gibson Triumph with lipstick pickups. They took out the soul of the instrument. And the bridge was moved several inches back so intonation is out the window. I guess it's a good platform to continue to mod.

 

[bradd]

I take it back, the fingerboard has been replaced with a 34" board.

 

[JIO]

Yes, a 'vintage' Gibson bass that has been substantially modded. If it works/intones and sounds good - rock it.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Wow. A Gibson Triumph with lipstick pickups. They took out the soul of the instrument. And the bridge was moved several inches back so intonation is out the window. I guess it's a good platform to continue to mod.

You're saying that is/was a real Gibson?!?!?!? If so, they are far worse that I thought that particular model, anyway.

 

[bradd]

You're saying that is/was a real Gibson?!?!?!? If so, they are far worse that I thought.

What you've said is insulting.


The lipstick pickups are not original to the instrument.

 

[johndb]

The twelfth fret would not be at the body of a Triumph bass at 30.5" scale. It looks like a longer scale fretboard was added, then the bridge was moved back accordingly. Maybe...

 

[WillyW]

It’s kind of a mess, hope you got it cheaper than the price of a Danelectro

 

[Jeff Scott]

What you've said is insulting.

I speak from experience; I've owned a few Gibson instruments over the decades and they were all (except for the Mark series acoustic I had in the mid '70s) excellent.

 

[JW56789]

Why are we not seeing a serial number above the keys on the back of the head ? ? ? IF this was ever an LP Triumph Bass, I'm afraid it's a l-o-n-g way from how it left Kalamazoo.

 

[HaphAsSard]

I'd hit it.

Maybe the electronics were long gone, when they put in the lipsticks.
(Which are themselves kind of lo-Z ...Only, they're, like, 200 times higher-Z than the originals?)

Paging @Basvarken.

 

[Killing Floor]

It looks pretty fun. If it plays nice and intonates I think it looks cool. Rock it.

 

[hieronymous]

Here's a great page with lots of info on the bass that this one seems to have been modded from:

Gibson Les Paul Triumph Bass >> FlyGuitars

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Why are we not seeing a serial number above the keys on the back of the head ? ? ? IF this was ever an LP Triumph Bass, I'm afraid it's a l-o-n-g way from how it left Kalamazoo.

If you zoom in a bit, but not too much, you can see what appear to be stamped numbers just above the inner screw hole for the A tuner. I think I see a "47" there. The neck is crudely painted.

That bass is messed up but good. I never thought I'd ever say to buy a cheap, used Epiphone bass, and use its parts to fix up a Gibson.

 

[MIMike]

Why are we not seeing a serial number above the keys on the back of the head ? ? ? IF this was ever an LP Triumph Bass, I'm afraid it's a l-o-n-g way from how it left Kalamazoo.

yes, there should be a serial number on the back side, top of the headstock…if it was a real Gibson. Those tuners that are on it now look closer to the Gibson tuners than what appear to be the original tuner screw holes (minus any badging of being quality tuners of course).

 

[jamro217]

Will the torment ever cease? What was once a serviceable (though unusual) bass has been turned into a nightmare. If you can get it for a pittance, it could be returned to some degree of its former dignity. It would take a bit of work, though.

 

[bassobrutto]

That's a pretty interesting piece! Rare to see a radical scale modification like this one. I am guessing that it sounds pretty great with those pickups in those spots with 34" scale--a long scale bass in a short scale package! There were some quite good Japanese copies of the Triumph made back in the 70s, so if it has a bolt-on neck it will be one of those. The original tuner screw holes look a little misaligned, which might also suggest this was originally an MIJ copy. And there seems to be a decal covering the headstock.

***EDIT*** You can tell for sure that this is a bolt-on MIJ copy because the body juts out from just below the 12th fret on the treble side. This would not happen on a set-neck Gibson. But clearly the person who modded the bass put a lot of thought and effort into it and it may play very well.

 

[jime]

Thank you all for taking a look and commenting. Good stuff!

I’m gonna rock it this week at rehearsal and see how my band mates like the tone.
Have an awesome rest of the weekend!

 

[Basvarken]

You didn't buy a fake. But you bought a molested Gibson Les Paul Bass aka Triumph that is beyond repair.
The secret weapons of the Les Paul Bass are the low-impedance humbuckers. In my opinion the best sounding bass pickups ever made. But some "genius" pulled those out (along with the control plate with built in impedance transformer) and installed lipstick pickups.

The weird thing is the neck has had a reset and it has been cut short. The position 18-24 are just cut off.
The bridge has been moved. The two dots are tell tale sings of the original bridge location.
I wonder what scale it is now.

Normally a Triumph should look like this:

 

[Deleted member 165050]

The changed tuners are easy to put back if wanted but not sure about the rest... modding it I guess was done when you could pick a Triumph up for very little. Interesting choice of pickups. I'd just play it and enjoy it, it's definitely a unique instrument!