Can anyone please give a diffinitive rundown of all the different versions of big muffs and big muff pis's including originals/reissues. series', and russina/usa. I'm basically trying to figure out how to identify if one is an original or resissue and would like to know what the common subjective tonal differences (I guess that could be an oxymoron) between them. I've looked everywhere on the web for a diffinitive resouce to no avail. I would appreciate a thorough explanation of the whole family tree. Thanks so much.

watchyourhead wrote: I'm basically trying to figure out how to identify if one is an original or resissue

try looking at the date

watchyourhead wrote:Can anyone please give a diffinitive rundown of all the different versions of big muffs and big muff pis's including originals/reissues. series', and russina/usa. I'm basically trying to figure out how to identify if one is an original or resissue and would like to know what the common subjective tonal differences (I guess that could be an oxymoron) between them. I've looked everywhere on the web for a diffinitive resouce to no avail. I would appreciate a thorough explanation of the whole family tree. Thanks so much.

Geofex has a bunch of schematics of the different models. You compare from the parts. Some use discrete transistors, some use op-amps.

A minute or two worth of Googling will pull up more than you care to know on the topic.

And even though the previous poster was being a smartass, he was right: You could open up the case and look for dates on stamps or stickers inside the unit.

This doesn't entirely answer your question but it quite easy to tell if one is a reissue or not. The current USA productions, which resemble the 3rd generation mid 70's ones, have a light to indicate whether the fuzz is on or not. If it has a light, it's a reissue.
Obviously all the various style Russian ones are reissues as well, beginning in the early 90's with the big green ones with the big crappy footswitch through the smaller black ones with the better jacks and switches.

As far as the American ones go, the first ones (very early 70's, maybe even '69, but I don't think so) were similar in shape to the later American ones but a bit smaller with only black graphics. Then they started making them in the typical larger EH style box, but still with all black graphics. Then the ones with the red and black graphics came out. Two different versions of these exist, one has a tone bypass switch, I'm not sure which was first. These were the last design made by the original EH and made through most of the 70's and are the most common "vintage" ones.
Unfortunately, as with most of their pedals, changes in circuitry had pretty much nothing to do with the cosmetic changes (especially the red and black models, they had lots of minor variations).

To get really geeky, before EH existed, there was the Guild Foxy Lady which Mike Matthews designed (according to him at least) and it later became the Big Muff.

Hope this answers your question.