Prior to finding the first composite-construction
Steinberger prototype (which he affectionately
refers to as “the platypus” or “missing link”), the
author had never come across a Steinberger
bass that was older than this early production
L2. Note the curved leg rest.
New York. From 1976 until
1991, I owned a guitar shop
about 20 miles away in
Poughkeepsie, and I was an
authorized Steinberger dealer
throughout the ’80s and ’90s (I
now work at headlessusa.com
a vintage Steinberger dealer).
Since I lived so close to the
original shop, I often visited
it—sometimes to introduce an
artist to Ned, and sometimes to
bring a customer in to order a
custom instrument.
Over the course of my
Steinberger hunting years, I’ve
discovered that they built a lot
of custom and one-off instruments—a fact that’s a double-edged sword for a collector. It
makes it exciting to find a rare
and unusual piece, but it also
makes it rather expensive to
acquire one.
A number of years ago, I was
fortunate enough to find and
purchase one of the earliest pro-
duction Steinberger basses—the
earliest I had encountered up to
that point. Most of the details
corresponded with the produc-
tion version of the original L2
bass, but there were definitely a
few prototype-like features, such
as the lack of both a serial num-
ber and a cover for the 9V bat-
tery compartment. It was appar-
ently one of the first half-dozen
or so basses that were distribut-
ed to some of the world’s fore-
most players. I’ve since heard
that basses like this one were
loaned to such legendary bass-
ists as fusion god Jaco Pastorius,
the Stones’ Bill Wyman, session
ace Leland Sklar, and the Dixie
Dregs’ Andy West.
Unique features on
this early production
L2 include the pickup
covers’ large, embossed EMG logos,
as well as the visible
hex heads securing
the front plate.
