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2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 6th, 2020, 7:11 pm
by paulo
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 7th, 2020, 5:13 am
by bobjones2260
Talk about a Unicorn! Congrats! BTW What year is the bass?
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 7th, 2020, 5:34 am
by Matt R.
I was wondering who got that
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 7th, 2020, 5:52 am
by paulo
bobjones2260 wrote:Talk about a Unicorn! Congrats! BTW What year is the bass?
Thanks Bob! It's a 76.
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 8th, 2020, 12:15 pm
by AzWhoFan
Congrats, that is indeed a unicorn. Never have I ever seen such a sight!
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 8th, 2020, 7:32 pm
by paulo
AzWhoFan wrote:Congrats, that is indeed a unicorn. Never have I ever seen such a sight!
Thanks Marc! Me either!
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 9th, 2020, 2:15 am
by ch willie
O my, I. wanted one of those when I was a kid. Congratulations. I've enjoyed the pics, such. a rare sight, for me anyway. Love it.
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 9th, 2020, 12:09 pm
by pjmuck

Well I guess the $100,000 question is: Is it real or a custom build?
There was another member here who had a lefty Ripper. Turns out that was a parts bass that was built. So I'd love to hear the story on the one, 'cause thee aren't supposed to exist.
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 9th, 2020, 7:16 pm
by paulo
pjmuck wrote:
Well I guess the $100,000 question is: Is it real or a custom build?
Thanks ch willie! This bass is a ton of fun to play and sounds great, I don't understand why they bash it on Talkbass.
There was another member here who had a lefty Ripper. Turns out that was a parts bass that was built. So I'd love to hear the story on the one, 'cause thee aren't supposed to exist.
Wen I received I took it all apart and looked closely and compared to the bodies sold on Reverb, the routing is identical plus the finish on the bass is perfectly aged as much as the rest of the bass. Also the pickguard is exactly the same as the righty ones, 5 ply.
Looks like it's been played and A LOT by a righty and even being lefty he kept it for so many years.
I don't have solid proof but it seems legit to me. Maybe an employee build or a very special "custom order".
Whatever it is, I love it but would like to know the story behind it as well.
Remember the lefty Electra X-610 was also not supposed to exist and I found one
http://leftybassist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9185
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 9th, 2020, 8:29 pm
by pjmuck
paulo wrote:pjmuck wrote:
Well I guess the $100,000 question is: Is it real or a custom build?
Thanks ch willie! This bass is a ton of fun to play and sounds great, I don't understand why they bash it on Talkbass.
There was another member here who had a lefty Ripper. Turns out that was a parts bass that was built. So I'd love to hear the story on the one, 'cause thee aren't supposed to exist.
Wen I received I took it all apart and looked closely and compared to the bodies sold on Reverb, the routing is identical plus the finish on the bass is perfectly aged as much as the rest of the bass. Also the pickguard is exactly the same as the righty ones, 5 ply.
Looks like it's been played and A LOT by a righty and even being lefty he kept it for so many years.
I don't have solid proof but it seems legit to me. Maybe an employee build or a very special "custom order".
Whatever it is, I love it but would like to know the story behind it as well.
Remember the lefty Electra X-610 was also not supposed to exist and I found one
http://leftybassist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9185
Awesome! Quite a find.
Here's Stan the Man with his early G3

- big_stanleyclarkeG3.jpg (30.55 KiB) Viewed 30933 times
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 11th, 2020, 1:51 pm
by donahue
Sick!! Would love to try that out. How do those old Bill Lawrence pickups sound?
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 11th, 2020, 9:00 pm
by paulo
donahue wrote:Sick!! Would love to try that out. How do those old Bill Lawrence pickups sound?
They sound awesome, these audio clips gives you an idea.
https://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/ ... dclips.php
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 12th, 2020, 2:45 pm
by Basshappi
OH. MY. GOD!!!

Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 13th, 2020, 12:43 am
by fivebass52
A lot of tonal diversity there! Sounds great!
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 16th, 2020, 10:17 pm
by ch willie
I so hope I never see one of those up for sale. I'd have to put my dog's daily food supply in danger.
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 20th, 2020, 9:26 pm
by pjmuck
Very unique tones.
It always struck me as odd though (or a missed opportunity, IMO) that, given the fact the bass has 3 PUPs, you only get 3 sounds. You can't solo any of them, can't mix PUPs 1 and 3 only, or in phase/out of phase, serial/parallel option, etc. I know it's taboo to mess with something as rare as this, but I think I'd try some non-destructive way of making the bass more versatile.
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: December 22nd, 2020, 7:11 pm
by paulo
pjmuck wrote:Very unique tones.
It always struck me as odd though (or a missed opportunity, IMO) that, given the fact the bass has 3 PUPs, you only get 3 sounds. You can't solo any of them, can't mix PUPs 1 and 3 only, or in phase/out of phase, serial/parallel option, etc. I know it's taboo to mess with something as rare as this, but I think I'd try some non-destructive way of making the bass more versatile.
I see what you're saying and makes total sense.
Maybe somewhere down the road I would consider doing a reversible mod like that but I still using one setting most of the time. I really like the 3 settings so far but lately I have been using the 3 pickups together (buck and a half) with the tone rolled off half way.
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: January 25th, 2021, 6:56 am
by DrizzlyGecko!
Wow, man! That's really cool! G3 is my dream bass lol, wish I could find a lefty one. Where did you find that?
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: January 26th, 2021, 4:36 pm
by paulo
DrizzlyGecko! wrote:Wow, man! That's really cool! G3 is my dream bass lol, wish I could find a lefty one. Where did you find that?
Thanks!
It popped on Reverb!
Re: 2020's last NBD Gibson Grabber G3 Bass Left Handed
Posted: February 9th, 2021, 6:30 pm
by paulo
It's been some good time now since I bought this bass and one thing I've noticed, it has side dots on both sides.
And the lefty dots seems to be added after the neck was done, still they're there after all the righty abuse.
It's harder and harder to say since there's no proof if it's a factory lefty or not but to be realistic I lean towards the possibility that it has a custom built body specially for it.
Regardless, it's a true 70's body and perfectly well made if it's really custom made all I can say is, it kicks ass!
Also, I have a righty 1974 Grabber bass with the sliding pickup, today I've sent it to Michael Dolan as he agreed to build a lefty body and pickguard for it within the next 14 weeks, I can't wait for that one!