1981 L1000
This is the description from the ebay auction where I got this one:
I bought this bass back in 1996 from a long time friend who had stripped this baby down (keep reading) to nothing. The frets, electronics and finish were all gone. He had big dreams of restoring this bass himself, but it never happened. Because it played like a song, even with everything out of it, you could feel and hear the sweetness, I bought it from him to take the task over myself. My first objective was to get the frets replaced and go with a vintage sunburst finish with a local luthier that used to work for Gibson. Then, seeing as how I was a struggling musician (aren't we all?) I realized that it would be a little while. So, I wrote G&L and included some pics and numbers that were on her and asked them if they had any of the old original "G&L L-1000" headstock emblems left lying around and if they could provide me with these based on the info, pics and numbers provided. Much to my surprise, I received a call a couple of weeks later from the CEO of G&L. He asked me if I had been quoted a price on a fret job and refinish and I gave him the quote given to me. At that time, he told me to ship it out to Huntington Beach and that they would refinish the instrument to it's original color, re-fret her and take care of the electronics. When I asked how much it would cost, he informed me that it would be free of charge, simply because, no matter how this bass got in my hands, that I was still a customer. He said that he actually learned a few things about Leo (Fender) while researching this himself. In the archives, he found the first steps of the Music Man and some other instruments that Leo had been working on. He also said that my bass was one of the last 15-20 to come off of the G&L line with the original (Fender type) headstock before they had to change it to the double cutaway that they sport now. To wrap this up, I sent her to G&L and got her back roughly 6-8 weeks later, in mint condition. Also the original bridge had the serial number stamped into it. When G&L worked on her, they put the serial number on the neckplate before sending it back to me. I have researched this and found the number to be a little different from basses of this era. The serial number on the neckplate is B029699. I cannot remember if this was the original serial number or not. G&L may have issued this instrument a new serial number which is unique in it's own right.