Smith Bass Design and its History (The on-line Book in the making)

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by David Newcomb

Were any of the early basses that had the wood cover Bill Lawrence pickups 5 or 6 string basses? I only ask this because on the rare occasions something of this era comes up for sale on Ebay or a similar site they are always 4 strings like mine. (Subway guitars has I believe #43 or #44 and this morning I saw a 4 string Pas II #108 on Ebay but it has the soaps).

There were only a few basses made with the wood covers, all but one or two were 4-string and were 1 or 2 pickup basses. Mainly one pick-up. There were two 6s made with wood covers but the Pickups were not by Bill Lawrence. These were custom coils made up that went into the first two 6s. One for Anthony Jackson, the first 6 we did and the second, a near twin went to Bill Dickens.