My partner has a few basses. All of the ones I’ve seen are beautiful. He has a Epiphone Thunderbird he bought brand new in 2017. He bought it in May which is also his birthday month. He ordered a tobacco sunburst. He received what we can only describe as a cherry red sunburst. Fell in love with it and kept it. He’s never seen another one like it and since we’ve been together we’ve really tried to figure it out. We just looked up the serial number and got a bit of new information. It was made in May. If we Google the serial number though the images are not quite what he has. I can take photos if anyone would like to see it. Thanks for any help offered in solving the mystery bass.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Please help identify this mystery bass.
- Thread starter Cerysgoff
- Start date
I've never seen an Epiphone cherry-red sunburst T-Bird. Please post some photos.
Gibson offered a heritage cherry sunburst T-Bird, like this one I found on the web...
Gibson offered a heritage cherry sunburst T-Bird, like this one I found on the web...
Last edited:
I'm not sure what the mystery is. I just googled 2017 Epiphone Thunderbird, and the results were mainly tobacco burst and what looks like cherry burst. It's a bit hard to tell which looks the most like the picture you posted. Am I missing something?
We have googled exactly that. We’ve googled that and with his in front of us none of them are the same as his.
Then we need better pictures to show what it is you mean is different, but there will always be some variation from one finish to another. The way you describe it, it sounds like he has a cherry burst bass. Pictures on a screen will never be accurate enough to compare anyway, but they should be enough to decide if it's cherry or tobacco. Googling the serial number won't help, but you might want to ask Epiphone if they keep track of the different finishes they used in 2017.
Update to add…I’ve now spoken to someone at Gibson who confirms that it should be a tobacco sunburst. I’ve added some better photos that I took yesterday.
Attachments
Can you get pictures in a well lit room against a light background? That would give a much more accurate representation of the finish. To me, it looks like either a light cherry burst or they made a mistake when painting it. Could be the first coat was cherry, but whoever did the finish didn't realize. Could also be the wood was darker or lighter than usual. My guess would be it's just a light cherry burst finish, incorrectly marked as tobacco in their records.
