columbus jazz bass

[Bassassin]

Fair play - that Model P's worth twice that!

J.

[KevB]

I did eventually restore it to the correct configuration with some authentic fender pickups and put a MM neck with decent tuners on it and a BA bridge at which point I gave it away to a niece who was learning bass at the time. It was a half decent playable instrument by then if still on the heavy side. Could never find a scratchplate to fit the original control plate though. [url="http://s30.photobucket.com/user/KevB64/media/jazzupgradebodyIMG_0269.jpg.html"][/url]

Edited January 9, 2014 by KevB

[discreet]

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1389139212' post='2330667']
I'll stop now because one of the rules of BC is that one should not post material which is "tortuous" and I think I possibly am.
[/quote]

Possibly - but it's all good.

[SOUL]

Yeah, my first bass was a heavy Columbus P.. back in the 70's.. Crappy neck, and tuning keys, but it sounded, and looked cool for its time ..
I never did like the neck action though.. I sold this bass guitar years ago.. then... whilst checking out a second-hand market , quite by chance, i saw another old, heavy sunburst Columbus P bass, the neck was totally destroyed !! .. but i bought the guitar anyway, knowing that i had an old fretted 70's P neck at home , in maple, and with no dot markers and with original Fender tuning pegs.. i fixed the two together, and made a hybrid.. and i must say it sounds real good with black flatwound nylon coated strings.. £75 for the neck, and £30 for the body.. A Bargain bass !! And I record with it often.. sounds nice..., plays nice..... peace..! SOUL..
B.T.W. Check out an excellent luthier named... Peter Scott.. he makes beautiful basses and electrics.. I am a proud owner of 2 of his amazing bass creations... Big Up Peter !!

Edited June 8, 2014 by SOUL

[inthedoghouse]

I remember them as being one of the worst of the worst back in the day - a joke of an 'instrument'.

As others have already said previously, you get so much more for your money these days if you look around.

[thebigyin]

Some great comments....had a Natural Wood finish Columbus Precision years ago. ...apart from weighing a ton I really liked it and gigged it many times and regret getting rid of it.
So much so I've just aquired another one, a Sunburst Precision it's in need of a tweek here and there but very loud, bought it off a bloke who never bothered with it, but came with a practice combo, quality lead and tuner £80....reckon about £30 to get it set up nice...so pretty pleased.

[earhook]

Got an old hollowbody Columbus bass off ebay recently. Its in good condition and plays reasonably for an old thing. The action is a bit high but it gets a nice vintage sound... not low and fast though.
Probably better suited to hanging on a wall than as a regular player but Im a sucker for old Japcrap.

[Rich]

My 2nd bass was a Columbus J. Don't know what the body was made of, but the bound/block neck was lovely and it sounded really good. I wired up a series/parallel switch and it got even better. Lent it to a 'friend' who promptly left town with it. Mike Hague, I hope it electrocuted you.

[Northy]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1369594351' post='2090710']
Columbus Jazz bass. My first bass. Plywood and horrible. No, really. Of course there might have been different ones, but mine was just horrible. I can remember the smell of sanding the neck down even now. I stripped the body in a fit of misplaced lutherieal excitement. It was horrible plywood. Frankly we live in a golden age of lutherie now. It is actually difficult to buy a nasty new bass now (setups withstanding obv). I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would buy a 70's plywood bass.

Opinionated? Moi?
[/quote]

Ooooops it's exactly what I just started with an old SG bass I was given!! Wished I hadn't too BUT . . . it needs finishing now!
Incidentally I have a USA 5 deluxe Jazz and a 4 the same, also a Sandberg TM4 (with extras) so it isn't a dosh thing, I just felt sorry for it!

You know what, playing an SG is actually fun! They're so naughty rock and roll, think Bowie Tribute! ;-)

If anyone has any bits to donate I really would be soooo thankful!

[Geek99]

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1389139212' post='2330667']
Satellites were nothing to do with Teisco, Matsumoku didn't build Columbus Js, end of. There's a lot of out-of-date erroneous information floating around on the web, most of it (including the Japanese manufacturer list I'm sure Fleabag's referring to) has been picked apart & discredited on the various specialist JapCrap boards where there are people who have been living & breathing this stuff since 1972.

Because most of the factories & importers are long-gone, the few that aren't kept no records, and these were irrelevant budget instruments at the time, the study of JapCrap is an odd cross between archaeology & detective work. Some manufacturers (Matsumoku, for example) have easily-identified features, while others are much more generic.

Often the only way to define the origin of an instrument is to compare a no-brand or off-brand with an example of one with a known provenance. Eg - there are no confirmed Matsumoku Jazz copies which are the same as Columbus J clones, therefore Matsumoku didn't make Columbus Js. On the other hand, a particular Maya J copy looks to be identical in every way, apart from the logo, so it's quite likely that Rokkomann (brand owner/possible manufacturer of Maya) were responsible for these Columbus instruments.

I'll stop now because one of the rules of BC is that one should not post material which is "tortuous" and I think I possibly am. But you get the gist. Hopefully.

J.
[/quote]
I found it very informative - please set your tortuousness filter up by one notch so you dont bail out so soon next time.

[prowla]

My 1st bass, in 1976, was a Columbus Jazz bass; I bought it from a household electricals shop in the Four Seasons Centre in Mansfield, using money I'd earned filling shelves in Tesco.

My recollection is that it was a decent bass, but quite heavy. it was usurped by a Ric a year or so later (I've still got the Ric).

I'm happy to leave it in the past.

I'd say a current Squier is probably a superior instrument.

[VintR]

I bought a sunburst Columbus Jazz from a music shop in Shaftesbury Avenue in 1977 (there were many there then, but now it’s Chinatown overspill) and I still have it, although it’s in pretty poor condition.
The body is solid, heavy, low quality wood, but the neck (although damaged) is dead straight and the truss rod works OK.
The frets are worn flat in places. The action is sky high with the saddles nearly flat on the bridge.

I recently bought a Squier Vintage Modified Precision PJ.
I prefer the P-bass shape and the additional J bridge pickup gives a good range of sounds.
However, the tuners don’t seem to work very well and it could do with better strings.

[Graham S]

I don't know about the basses, but I had a Columbus Les Paul for a while in the late 70s and it wasn't all that great. I replaced it with a Hohner Strat, which despite being plywood was a far superior guitar.

[PaulWarning]

I bought a natural finish left handed Columbus P off ebay last year, 2 pieces of proper wood (Alder maybe?), baseball bat maple neck wasn't half bad, not quite up to my MIA P though, so I moved it on, nothing wrong with it.

[VintR]

[quote name='Graham S' timestamp='1510251799' post='3405080']
I don't know about the basses, but I had a Columbus Les Paul for a while in the late 70s and it wasn't all that great. I replaced it with a Hohner Strat, which despite being plywood was a far superior guitar.
[/quote]
My brother's first electric guitar was a black Columbus Les Paul. It looked great, but it was bad.
A good set up would have probably improved it, but he bought a nice Ibanez Artist instead.

[LTSSTUDIO]

I still have a Columbus Jazz bass and clients use it in  the studio. Its just left hanging around and invariably players use it as their choice over many other basses. Fast neck, great tone feels and like a Fender....maybe I just have a good one or my quality control isn't as high as everyone else. I change strings regularly though!!

Dow Fereday

LTS Studio

Wales UK

[LTSSTUDIO]

changed the nasty tuners though and added a new neck pickup...sorted out action

[Chopthebass]

Ha ha I had a plywood one. It actually looked good. Sounded shite

[W1tchseason]

Columbus was a brand of cheap-to-middle priced guitars in the 70s. Nearly all of them were copies of Fenders or Gibsons; they were playable as first guitars but certainly not up to e.g. Squiers. Columbus were distributed by a UK company called Fletcher, Coppock & Newman, who also distributed Kimbara guitars. Kimbaras were much better quality, really nice instruments for the money (about double the price of a Columbus or less than half that of a Fender). I still have - and gig with - my Kimbara Jazz copy, I swapped the PUs for a pair of Reflex Reds but apart from that it's all original. I wouldn't part with it for the world.

[Bassassin]

2 hours ago, W1tchseason said:

Columbus was a brand of cheap-to-middle priced guitars in the 70s. Nearly all of them were copies of Fenders or Gibsons; they were playable as first guitars but certainly not up to e.g. Squiers. Columbus were distributed by a UK company called Fletcher, Coppock & Newman, who also distributed Kimbara guitars. Kimbaras were much better quality, really nice instruments for the money (about double the price of a Columbus or less than half that of a Fender). I still have - and gig with - my Kimbara Jazz copy, I swapped the PUs for a pair of Reflex Reds but apart from that it's all original. I wouldn't part with it for the world.

 

On 07/01/2014 at 11:53, Bassassin said:

Satellite was imported by the same company (FCN Music in Tonbridge) but they were Korean-made and a lower priced, even cheaper & nastier range. Columbus was FCN's middle range, with the very nice quality Kimbara brand at the top.

Since 2014 the various online MIJ communities have unearthed a bit more about the origins of many of these instruments. We now know MIJ Columbus to have largely been a product of Chushin Gakki - most of them are identical to a vast array of midrange copy-era guitars that appear worldwide with hundreds of different brands - including common UK names like Avon, CMI, Grant, Sumbro etc. It's possible that some of the later MIJ Columbuses were Kiso Suzuki builds, but that's as yet unconfirmed. Copies can be understandably hard to ID.

FCN's Kimbara range seems to have been a combination of high-end Chushin builds and Matsumoku - I'd expect @W1tchseason's Jazz to be a Matsumoku bass - if it has a 'Steel Adjustable Neck' stamped neckplate, that would confirm it.

[Lfalex v1.1]

I had a Columbus J fretless. It was my second bass, and was definitely ply! Dreadful thing. I still have the neck. What's left if it after using Roto rounds on the Rosewood board.... 🙃

 

[NickA]

With Squires out there why would anyone buy a Columbus. 

Back in the 70s /80s a real fender was £400+ (three weeks wages for me).  There were no Squires.  But after rent (£10 a week) beer money (£3) and living expenses (£20) I saved for a 2nd hand £90 jap jazz copy ( Grant not Columbus, but same ilk).  It was aawful( dead ply body, low output pickups, slippy truss rod, bumpy fingerboard) and over the years had a small fortune spent on it ...  still have bits of it.

Just buy a squire... better still a Yamaha 😉

[ianrendall]

I had one. Very heavy. It was black with blocks and binding on the neck. Rosewood board. Previous owner made a right hack job drilling a hole on the edge next to the jack and badly gluing in an XLR output. 

[Bigguy2017]

A Columbus Jazz, sunburst with block markers, was my first 'proper' bass. 

I paid £80 for it, new, in a Brum music shop in 1973 (?).

It worked - you could play bass on it...   

The Fender Musicmaster was a big upgrade.

[Waddo Soqable]

Satellite were another similar thing of the time, possibly the same group of manufacturers, they were what they were, basses people could afford...

I laugh to see the prices people want for these things on ebay, ridiculous for what they are. I guess you might get an old bloke wanting one as he had one in his youth, but as a playing bass not worth the candle !