John Birch Thunderbird Bass on Gumtree

[Bassassin]

1 hour ago, tauzero said:

 

If it is the same one, there's not much of a profit there. £11.32, to be exact. Cost including 26.4% hammer fee, £783.68.

 

It may be an optical illusion, but it looks as if the switch is orientated at 90 degrees to the one on Gumtree.

 

Fair point - I never looked at the fees or calculated a total.

 

It is definitely the same bass - on the headstock there are two chips & a scuff in exactly the same places in both sets of pics. I'm assuming it was bought just for the pickups - wonder what they went in?

[W1_Pro]

12 hours ago, Bassassin said:

 

Fair point - I never looked at the fees or calculated a total.

 

It is definitely the same bass - on the headstock there are two chips & a scuff in exactly the same places in both sets of pics. I'm assuming it was bought just for the pickups - wonder what they went in?

It looks like you are right...Has to be said, that is a pretty niche thing to do. 'I need  new pickups for my John Birch bass, therefore I will buy another John Birch bass and take the pickups out of it'...That is quite weird, right?

[NancyJohnson]

On 25/11/2025 at 08:24, BigRedX said:

It was discussed in this thread back in August.

 

The general consensus then was that the bridge is by John Birch, and the rest could be anything. If it was a genuine JB it would have had John Birch pickups on it when it was originally made, and I can't think of any sensible reason to replace them.

 

General consenus and 'the rest could be anything'?  People do change their pickups - just look at this site - there's hundreds of people swapping out pickups.

 

If you have a look at the photos of the Gardiner Houlgate auction and compare to the Gumtree bass, I'd say everything matches except the Gumtree bass has - for some reason - P90 pickups in it.  

 

As I said in the original thread I posted, that seller doesn't seem to stock junk.  He's had some spectacular kit through.

 

[Bassassin]

3 hours ago, W1_Pro said:

It looks like you are right...Has to be said, that is a pretty niche thing to do. 'I need  new pickups for my John Birch bass, therefore I will buy another John Birch bass and take the pickups out of it'...That is quite weird, right?

 

I guess so - but 70s JB pickups aren't exactly something you can pick up off Thomann or Gear4Music, so if you really needed a set, your only option might be with a bass attached! If the calculation was to flip the bass for around what you paid for it, it sort of makes sense.

Edited 10 minutes ago by Bassassin

[W1_Pro]

1 minute ago, Bassassin said:

 

I guess so - but 70s JB pickups aren't exactly something you can pick up off Thomann or Gear4Music, so if you really needed a set, your only option might be with a bass attached! If the calculation was to flip the bass for around what you paid for it, it sort of makes sense.

Yes, absolutely. I had a bit of a ferret around on Reverb and a single JB Hyperflux seems to be priced arounf the £200 mark, so there's your profit on the deal I suppose. If that T bird had frets and the seller could be perseuded into a more realistic price it would be an interesting project for someone- its essentially a great bass- but I appreciate that this is entirely wishful thinking on my part😆