1966 AMPEG AUB-1 "SCROLL BASS" | FRETLESS | SERIAL #30 | FIRST YEAR PRODUCTION

From the Richard Davis Collection at the International Guitar Museum, Durham, North Carolina. Registered with the International Musical Instrument Registry (IMIR), Luxembourg. Sold with IMIR provenance documentation and an IGM Certificate of Authenticity.

"Before Jaco, before Fender made a fretless Precision, Ampeg built this: a fretless electric bass with a scroll head and f-holes cut clean through the body, made for upright players crossing over to electric. Serial number 30 is about as close to the beginning of that story as you can get." - Museum founder and curator Rich Davis

THE SCROLL BASS

Ampeg was founded in 1946 by bassist Everett Hull and built its name on bass amplification. In July 1966, at the NAMM show in Chicago, it introduced its own electric bass guitar, designed by Dennis Kager: a scroll headstock borrowed from Ampeg's Baby Bass, and f-holes cut right through the body like a double bass. It came fretted (AEB-1) or fretless (AUB-1, "U" for unfretted).

The first basses used Ampeg's "Mystery Pickup," mounted beneath the bridge itself. It sensed the vibration of the bridge like an upright pickup and worked with gut or steel strings. Ampeg replaced it with a magnetic pickup in late 1967, which makes the early Mystery Pickup basses the most sought after.

A FRETLESS PIONEER

Players had pulled frets out of basses since the early 1960s, but the AUB-1 was among the first fretless electric basses offered as a factory production model, four years before Fender's fretless Precision of 1970. AUB-1 players included Rick Danko of The Band and Boz Burrell of Bad Company. Only about 1,200 AEB-1 and AUB-1 basses were made in total before the original line ended in 1969, and the fretless AUB-1 is the rarer of the two.

SERIAL #30

Serial number 30 places this bass among the very first built, in the opening months of production in 1966. Low-numbered, first-year examples with the original Mystery Pickup are the most desirable Scroll Basses.

SPECIFICATIONS

- Maker: Ampeg, Linden, New Jersey

- Model: AUB-1 fretless "Scroll Bass"

- Year: 1966 (first year of production)

- Serial: 30

- Body: semi-solid maple with f-holes cut through both bouts

- Neck: maple, bolt-on, with zero fret

- Fingerboard: rosewood, fretless, side position dots

- Headstock: scroll, slotted peg box, open-gear bass tuners with paddle keys

- Pickguard: black, bound, with f-hole cutouts and Ampeg script

- Scale: 34"

- Pickup: original "Mystery Pickup" under the bridge

- Controls: volume and tone

- Bridge: milled aluminum, adjustable

- Tailpiece: extended block; uses extra-long-scale strings

- Finish: cherry red with black edge burst; red sunburst back

- Case: Original  black vinyl padded gig bag

CONDITION

Good. Played hard and honestly worn, with no sign of refinish:

- Large areas of finish worn to bare wood on the lower bout and bass-side edge, with chips around the rim

- Heavy lacquer checking on the top and sides, typical of these basses

- Wear and chips on the scroll tip and back of neck

- Light marks on the back; neck back keeps its gloss; rosewood board in good condition

- Modern strings fitted

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