The top appears to be laminated maple (not spruce), the sides and back are a plain maple and show little or no signs of flaming. All examples are dark brown in color, have one single black pin stripe and no outer rib linings. This bass has shown up twelve times so far in my database. Furthermore, when the basses finally did hit the market they listed for 25% higher then comparable models offered by Kay, $345 for the Epi B-4 verse $275 for the Kay C-1.ī-1 model was first officially introduced in January 1941 (though production began in 1940) according to the Epiphone catalog it was their entry level bass. According to John Huis the real cause was: “We rented the space and then the guy turned off the heat over the weekend.” Every single bass, even the ones Gibson had bought in a finished state, had to be stripped and refinished. The rented building was not climate controlled and abrupt changes in temperature and humidity had caused the finish on the “Epi” basses to check or crack. On FebruArbanas brought bad news from the bass production line. I think they had gotten rid of it before we got a hold of it.” Ward Arbanas was put in charge of the Epiphone division, and he was first optimistic about bass production, suggesting in a memo dated Decemthat they should add a line of cello’s (Gibson’s own prewar cello forms were apparently still intact). The Epi equipment, they didn’t have anything in what you would call real good equipment.
According to John Huis, “We built very few basses. Bass production was supposed to be easy with no new models to develop. The fall of 1957 came and went with no new basses. There was no room at the Gibson plant in Kalamazoo so Gibson rented a building less then 12 blocks away.
In May of 1957, Gibson announced it's planned to have basses available in the very near future. Upright basses were the reason Gibson bought Epiphone, but it turned out to be no easy task to manufacture these fine basses.
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