Early Guild Starfire Bass. Made in Hoboken, NJ in late 1966, it's a fantastic playing and sounding bass guitar!
Laminated maple semi-hollow body, sunburst finish, laminated mahogany neck and a rosewood fingerboard. It's got the Hagstrom made bi-sonic pickup positioned at the neck, which is unusual for the early-era Starfires. This pickup is ridiculously sensitive, powerful, alarmingly bright for being the neck pup of a semi-hollow bass. Somewhat like a Dearmond, nothing like the humbucking style pickups of later Starfire models. The range of tone/volume control goes from an uprightish sound, to a chimy, plunking "60s" tone to woofy, overdriven rock bass. Famously used by the Dead and Jack Casady, the Hagstrom bi-sonic pickup was the basis for the famous "Darkstar" pickup. It's incredibly versatile and distinctive. It's medium scale, strung up with mixed gauge labella flatwounds right now. Everything is original except one of the two screws holding the truss rod cover in place.
This bass contains immense vibe! Cosmetically, it has wear--please view all the pictures or email me for more specifics shots...There is a scratch below the vol/tone contols near the f-hole, but the rest is honest wear, finish chipping, some binding pulling apart in the cutaways, but is solid. This thing plays like butter, sounds amazing, stays in tune, and has one of the best feeling, fast, necks.
This bass comes in a new, Guild "Newark St. Collection" TKL hardshell black tolex case that fits the instrument perfectly (The body is slightly larger than a typical Gibson EB2/335 so is hard to fit into a case!). Please feel free to ask me any questions!
