How many Smith/Jackson basses were made?

[John Adams]

Hi Everyone

Just joined recently and was going through the threads. I'm an original owner of an 1989 KS 5 String. Still have the bass. Great story on that bass and will do a thread on it.

I came across this bass on another forum. See below. It is described as follows:

"Its a Smith/Jackson 6 string. According to Owner this is #5 of the Smith/Jacksons made and was a NAMM show bass. Flame maple top and back. Mahogany core. Jazz bass string spacing. 24k gold hardware. Sweet inlays. 2 band pre (bass and treble) and coil switches for the pickups. Fun fact. John Pattitucci actually had dibs on this bass but Owner had the money before John did and sorta...ahem... bought it before John. And as we all know, John ended up with I believe #6 which had the walnut top...."

I really dig the whole vibe of this bass. I am thinking of trying to find one to purchase. Does anyone know how many of these were made in total? What year(s) they were made? Anyone here own one?

Ken - Can you tell without serial number if the description above is accurate? What does he mean by " Jazz spacing"? What would that spacing be? It looks narrower than my 89 which I believe is 18mm.

Many thanks and enjoy this beauty.

[Ken Smith]

First, this would be 1985, not 1989 if it is the bass that John had to pass up to get the next and maybe the last we made in NY. I would need the serial number to see if it is 1985 but, looking at the circuit, it is not 1989.

In 1986, we went to a 3-knob BT circuit which this is the old 4-knob. Also the switches there are Preamp on-off (by-pass) and phase switch, not coil switches or series/parallel.

I don't know if my records and old pictures are enough to count how many 6s were made up until this time but it would take a lot of effort and digging to get within 90% (maybe better) of how many we made. Less than 10 is my guess. The last few necks that we had left for 6s were cut in half, wood taken out and glued back up thinner across with a rosewood-or-like veneer and used as 5-string necks. Four/4 basses were made like this, cut-down 6-string necks into 5s. Freddy Washington has one, we/I have one here and there are 2 others.

A few years later, we started making them in PA as the first couple of years we made mostly 4-string basses, then some 5s and then 6's.

The Smith-Jackson was just a truss-rod cover designed to be used with a 2-truss-rod system due to it's width. We only did a few this way, some with or without graphite reinforcement added in the neck under the fingerboard. We also made one or a few with one rod only and no graphite but soon settled on just one rod with graphite and then double graphite to make up for the width with still just one rod.

That Cap was used regardless of the model neck used during its brief evolution. Also, they were some kind of cast metal and heavy. Most of the ones made are somewhere here or tossed out years ago as only a few of them were ever used.

The 6's we make now are the best we have ever made and the design is mostly unchanged since the late 1990's. The string spacing after the first two 6s was close to 19mm and are now are 18mm. The first two 6s made were at 17.5mm.

Although that Cap says Smith-Jackson, it is basically the Smith BT model with 6-strings. Anthony wanted a 6, we made two for him and he paid good money for them and the design work. Nothing was free. Then, we went to the BT design for the 6s because that was MY idea for the model and it worked very well. Anthony was the guy that got me to make and develop the 6-string to begin with so we gave him credit on that Cap. When the Jackson name came off, it was for a few reasons. Mainly because we were not doing business with him anymore, we didn't need such a big heavy Cap for a single Rod and it was NOT a Smith-Jackson design. It was the Smith BT model after the first few 6s were made.

[John Adams]

Wow. Thank you Ken. That is awesome information. Much more than I expected.

My bass is an 89 not pictured here. ( I'll save that one for a later thread).

The one pictured in the post is not mine but one I found on another forum. I found it very interesting build. I figured it was an 85-87 but wasn't sure. The owner was toying with the idea of selling it last year so I was thinking of reaching out to him to see if it is for sale still. Just wanted to understand exactly what it was and where were it fit in the design history.

Again, just great info. Thank you so much.

John

[John Adams]

Got price from seller but just couldn't afford it. Too bad I think it an awesome example of KS history and design.

Thanks Ken for the info.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by John Adams

Got price from seller but just couldn't afford it. Too bad I think it an awesome example of KS history and design.

Thanks Ken for the info.

It should be a bit less than the prices today. It is older but not better. All Smith basses improve with age if taken care of. Age is the only thing we can't add to a bass other than ages woods, not aged playing!

[Lou Laurenti]

Thanks for the info Ken great info