Pickup change on Starfire Basses around 1970

hansmoust

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This is a continuation of Frono's Starfire Bass I on eBay thread and an attempt to make specific threads better 'search'able:

fronobulax said:
Since the switch from Hagstroms to Guild humbuckers occurred in 1970 one wonders whether this might be one of the last Hagstrom equipped SF I's. Also wonder whether the shift from BA-xxxx to yyyyy as a serial number occurred with the PU change.

Hello Frono,

If I had started my Guild database as an Exel file ( or something similar), it would have been easy to get a list of all basses with the 'Hagstrom' pickup, or the 'big Humbucker' or any specific detail that you wanted to know. However, my Guild database is an extension of my 'general' database, which was started during the early '80s and which is, for the most part, a card-based file. But in spite of that, most of these details can be found if you're willing to do a little browsing through the cards.

Whether or not it is one of the last Hagstrom equipped Starfire I's is hard to say, since it appears that Guild didn't make that much Starfire basses at that point in time, but the change to 'Humbuckers' definitely took place after the change to the 'new' serial number system with 5 digits . If I look at the different basses from that period in my database, which were the Starfire bass I/II, the JS-Bass I/II and the M-85 Bass I/II, I can see that the use of pickups was basically the same on all three models. As a generalization I would say that approx. up till ser. # 50000 all Guild basses used Hagstrom pickups; sometimes a combination of the Bi-Sonic in the fingerboard position and the smaller Hagstrom humbucking pickup in the bridge position.
If you find a bass with a lower serial number that has the Guild humbucking pickup(s) it is safe to say that the instrument probably left 'final assembly' at a later date or that the instrument was converted after it left the factory.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl
 
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