above - 1973 Les Paul Signature Bass - taken from the 'Look ahead to Gibson' brochure of that year. Notice the chicken head switch, curved pickups with chrome surrounds, and that both input jacks are on the edge of the body. These pickups are the same style as on other Les Paul low impedance basses, the Les Paul, and the Les Paul Triumph

left and right The 1975 Gibson catalogue This is the bass more usually seen, rectangular pickups with plastic surrounds, and one input jack on the front of the body, and one on the side

First produced in 1973, the Les Paul Signature bass was available until 1979, though more than three quarters (428 out of 627 total) were produced in 1974

The price of this bass rose from its launch; $525 to $629 in January 1975. Sales dropped to 1/15th of the levels of 1974. To combat this the price, was slashed to $499 in the November of that year; lower than the launch price. This was unheard of - the first time a Gibson bass had been offered at a price lower than its launch price. It was to no avail; sales never picked up, and the price stayed at $499 until its last price-list appearance in 1977