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columbus jazz bass


sbrag

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There seems to be quite a few 1970s columbus jazz copies made at the matsomoku plant floating around ebay at the moment. They seem to go for reasonable money but does any one know if they are any good. Would they be better value than a mim or squier? Im aware of what matsomoku (although not sure of the spelling)have made aria westone etc but have never tried a columbus in the flesh. Cheers

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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?

  • Haha 1
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I remember Columbus basses as cheap and nasty Jazz copies, but saw one a couple of weeks ago in natural finish which was definitely solid wood. It is possible that it was a Columbus neck on a different body, but the owner seemed sure it was all original.

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[quote name='sbrag' timestamp='1369593832' post='2090698']
Would they be better value than a mim or squier?
[/quote]
That depends on what you consider 'value'. If you want something that may gain a little in value over the next ten years or so then a Columbus could be what you are looking for but if you want a decent quality bass to use and gig then it's got to be a MIM or Squier.

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  • 7 months later...

Hi Columbus fans
I bought a Columbus jazz from Greenhalghs, Fore Street, Exeter in about 1976, and played it in local bands. It's claim to fame was being used by me in the production of 'John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert' at Nottingham Playhouse in 1981(?) I really liked the guitar and regretted selling it to the sound tech at the theatre at the end of the run to fund a precision.
I had stripped off the lacquer to the natural finish and the body was solid, although I remember the wood wasn't particulary hard.

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[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1369606087' post='2090886']
I remember Columbus basses as cheap and nasty Jazz copies, but saw one a couple of weeks ago in natural finish which was definitely solid wood. It is possible that it was a Columbus neck on a different body, but the owner seemed sure it was all original.
[/quote]

Mate of mine had a clear finish Jazz back in the 70's. Defo solid wood & a nice neck - bound with blocks. Looked great & played quite well.

G.

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Dunno where the OP got the idea that Columbus were made by Matsumoku. Ebay experts, perhaps? Anyway, they absolutely weren't. Not sure who did make them - maybe Rokkomann/Maya but definitely not Mat.

I've had a few and none of them were ply - bodies tended to be veneered butcher-block - not great quality but a step up from ply. Clear finish ones were decent solid timber. Not great basses but not awful - like most lowish-end 70s JapCrap a decent setup will address most issues - I guess back then most of us just played them straight out of the box. The weedy round-end pickups were another matter - not surprising a good few turn up with DiMarzios fitted.

Jon.

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For what it's worth... I too had a Columbus Jazz bass. I had a 73 fender jazz and 75 Rickenbacker at the same time, and I hate to admit it, but the Columbus more than a match for those basses. Maybe I just got lucky (with the Columbus) or unlucky with the 73 Jazz and 75 Ricky! I also had an SG Columbus bass.... plywood... sounded great, nice low action... one of the few guitars I wish I hadn't sold.

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[quote name='SlapbassSteve' timestamp='1389061166' post='2329543']
Weren't Satelite basses made by the same people? Horrible things. Amazed they trade hands for so much money nowadays.
[/quote]
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.

J.

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[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1389095924' post='2329763']
I can see them now. Hanging up with the Jedsons etc in the cheap section at Bell's Instruments in Surbition in the early 70s. :)
[/quote]
I had their catalogue way-back-when.. probably the finest guitar porn available at the time; contained many words which I'd never heard before! :-D

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[quote name='hubrad' timestamp='1389096708' post='2329781']
I had their catalogue way-back-when.. probably the finest guitar porn available at the time; contained many words which I'd never heard before! :-D
[/quote]
I remember a mate of mine part exchanging his really beaten up pre CBS Stratocaster (Lake Placid Blue i think) in Bell's in the 70s for new Strat. I think he got about £100 for the beaten up Stratocaster as there was no real market for them in that condition back then. I'm sure that it was because anyone buying a guitar at that time would have lived through the austerity of post war Britain and everyone wanted things to be bright, new and shiny. How things have changed eh?

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I've had both Columbus JB and Satellite Precision, way back when

According to my searches back at the time, both Matsumoku and Tombo were listed as producing Columbus basses. I would hazard a guess and say the Matty models were solid, and the Tombo were the cheap nasty affairs, as seems there's differing opinoins here on the wood used.

Thought my Columbus was pretty ok, and played fine

As for Satellite - oh dear. Known for warping necks, and although my Precision copy looked good ( neck through ) , it had the warped neck. Made by Kawai Teisco who built all manor of shoddy stuff.

There's some right chancers on Ebay trying to palm off Satellites for over £300. I wouldnt give £25 for one unless i was there inspecting it with a microscope. Best avoided

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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.

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A Columbus JB was my second bass. £65, late seventies. I have nothing but fond memories of it. No idea what it was made of or who made it, but it weighed a lot on my teenage shoulders and sounded more that OK at the time (I have patchy cassette recordings to support this!). It was just a stepping point bass. Served it's purpose.
P

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[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1389055000' post='2329521'] The weedy round-end pickups were another matter - not surprising a good few turn up with DiMarzios fitted. Jon. [/quote]


Yeah, the guy who I bought my first bass from (we'd been in a school band together before I realised I wasn't lead vocalist material) had fitted some Dimarzio's to his :D Come on I only paid £30 for it...


[URL=http://s30.photobucket.com/user/KevB64/media/columbusjazzbody.jpg.html][IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c307/KevB64/columbusjazzbody.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

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