Question for eb era musicman Sabre or Sabre classic owners

[kevins]

So I’m trying to figure out if the original owner of the 84 Sabre I have had switched out all the electronics or just a lot of them.

Has anyone here seen what the neck pickup for a Sabre looks like under the pick guard?

A small description could help here.

Springs or no springs, open back or not open back, visible poles on the back or not, any description of what that pickup looks like when it’s not covered by the pickup cover will help me be able to figure out if I should put in both pickups from the 78 Sabre I bought or just the bridge one.

I need any description of what that neck pickup looks like! You can find pics of what a musicman stingrays pickup look like but the Sabre is much much harder to find info like that on without having one in front of you and they’re rare!

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

Above is an August 1983 "Cutlass 11" Bass (ie a Sabre Bass with a Graphite neck).

From 1979 to 1982 the Sabre neck and bridge pickups both had four pole pieces. Toggle switches were used for pickup combinations.

From 1983 the neck pickup (only) changed to having 16 pole pieces each measuring 3/16 inch diameter. The bridge pickup remained unchanged. See the above pic. Although the example shows a Cutlass 11 Sabre Bass, the new neck pickup applied to all Sabre Basses. At the same time the electronics were replaced with a Sting Ray 2EQ preamp in combination with a lever switch for pickup combinations.

All the EB Sabres and Classic series Sabres had the 16 pole neck pickup with the lever switching.

 

[kevins]

Above is an August 1983 "Cutlass 11" Bass (ie a Sabre Bass with a Graphite neck).

From 1979 to 1982 the Sabre neck and bridge pickups both had four pole pieces. Toggle switches were used for pickup combinations.

From 1983 the neck pickup (only) changed to having 16 pole pieces each measuring 3/16 inch diameter. The bridge pickup remained unchanged. See the above pic. Although the example shows a Cutlass 11 Sabre Bass, the new neck pickup applied to all Sabre Basses. At the same time the electronics were replaced with a Sting Ray 2EQ preamp in combination with a lever switch for pickup combinations.

All the EB Sabres and Classic series Sabres had the 16 pole neck pickup with the lever switching.

Thanks so much! Yeah I’m gonna call and confirm with the tech tomorrow whether some goofball switched out all of the electronics or not, but worst case scenario is that i end up with a 1979/1984 musicman Sabre. Once I throw in the 79 neck pickup, it’s all the same electronics as the 79 except for the toggle switch, I tracked down a pre-amp and everything.

Now I’m weighing just going for it and buying the entire control panel and pre-amp from the 79 or waiting on the 16 piece neck pickup! These a guy on talk bass who posted an 83 or 84 with an unusable body, too late to return it but also it’s been really super fun trying to restore it to being an all musicman parts bass, and they’re rare enough to the point where this is sorta the kinda thing you do find when you do find them