Shipping figures for Gibson RD Artist and RD Standard bass guitars

	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	total
RD Artist	504	1402	734	?	?	2640+
RD Standard	388	425	103			916
RD-77	6					6

The RD Artist was produced until April 1981, however shipping figures are unavailable past 1979. A batch of RD Artists with a curly maple top were the last to be produced in April '81 (probably numbering 100 or so).

Shipping figures mention six RD-77 basses right at the start of production. Mid 1977 Gibson literature refers to the RD Artist bass shown at the 1977 NAMM show as the RD-77, so presumably these are just prototypes or show models, that were listed with the old name. With the exception of the first prototype which had a bolt-on neck, all other RD Artist basses were the same; according to Chuck Burge who hand-built the show models, they did not differ from the regular production models in any significant way. See the RD Artist timeline