Maude

I know. I'd have loved one and for a bit considered buying Mani's black one that was on Reverb. But the reality is I wouldn't be able to gig a bass of that value, and as an investment it wasn't his John Squire paint splattered one so wouldn't ever be more valuable than a 'normal' one. Although it did end up reduced to the rough price of a normal one.

Get back, get back I tell you! I'll get the pitchfork! 😆

I can't sell the 4005, it's the perfect image for my Mod band............... that hasn't gigged since March and has absolutely nothing in the diary. 😄

No chance, Terry's dad was useless on the tools. It was more likely Bob's dad. 😁

I think you're probably right. I'm inclined to think the machining tolerance was probably rather relaxed back then, and as long as it measures 30" between nut and bridge, none of this really matters. Everything points to it being an Artist from between 63 and 65, and that'll do. I was just trying to rule out reasons it could be something else. I'd imagine no real records were kept of any changes to the basses over the years, and the best anyone can do to pin an individual bass year and model down is gather as much info as possible and the model with the most 'hits' wins, so to speak. At least I can be virtually certain that the body is genuine, as I did wonder, as @Richard R alluded to, if the body had been made to suit by someone. It wouldn't matter really but it's nice to know it's a genuine Hofner. I did wonder if many of these had a gap of varying size in the neck pocket, under the scratchplate, depending on hardware location. And when whoever filled the pickup cavity, they filled the pocket gap as well. Pickups, electrics and scratchplate won't be genuine though so why am I worrying 🙄 😄.

That's very interesting. On yours, everything is pushed towards the end pin, look at the distance from the scratchplate to the neck access cutaways. Very odd why this would be. I wonder is it definatly a UK versus Euro thing, or is it just very bad tolerances on machining/production. This could be the reason the neck pocket on mine has that infill though. As if the neck pocket was routed for the deeper neck (thus everything else) position, but mounted in the shallower position, along with all the rest of the hardware. If the different positions for hardware are a UK/Euro thing, is it possible that my neck pocket was routed for Europe but then built for the UK Market? Pure speculation but I'd have thought the change in hardware position would be an age thing rather than an area thing. Like they were made like mine up to a certain point where Hofner then moved all the hardware further into the body to reduce the overall length of the instrument, to lesson the reach to the first fret. It's all very intriguing. Thanks for your input in this thread @ikay 🙂👍

Hmm, on another page of that vintage Hofner site there is some conflicting information,both from the same person though I think. From this page it looks like the Artist bass never got the slider switches, and the Euro 185 got side dots on the neck but not the UK Artist. Mine has side dots. Also UK neck were clear lacquered and Euro necks were predominantly painted black. Mine is clear So maybe it's a Euro 185, white body and side dots? 🤔 I don't know because my brain hurts now. I'll do more digging later. Apologies if I'm boring everyone with these ramblings. 🙂

California Soul - Marlena Shaw

Looking back at my pictures, the red in the neck pocket is a red primer that was used under the purple paint. As it's only a dusting and you can still see the wood under it, I'm not convinced this was originally bright red. There should be more evidence of it in the neck pocket. The layers in order were wood, clear sealer coat, a white primer or topcoat, red primer (red oxide colour, not scarlet like the top coat would've been), the purple basecoat, and then a clear lacquer.

You, my friend, are a legend. 🙂👍 That is exactly how mine is routed. That info has now allowed me to peice all the puzzle together and place it between 1963 and 1965. The Artist (Selmer, UK market) was introduced in '62 along with the 185 (Hofner, European market). In '63 they had a couple of changes, different pickups and a string tree added. In '65 the selector switches were added. Your picture above is definatly routed the same as mine, apart from the later pickup mods. My headstock has an old hole where the string tree would have been, but no switches making it a '63, '64 or '65, according to this site, which seems pretty reliable and tallies with most other sites but groups all the info together. Scroll right down, the Artist is the bottom section. http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/gallery/gallery2/bas.html The only possible sticking point is that all UK Artist basses were either painted red or had a red vinyl covering. I thought the white under all the paint looked like an original coating by the way it sat on the sealer coat, more of a primer than a top coat through. Now either it was the original coating and the red vinyl went over this, or mine was originally red and all the red was removed years ago. The neck pocket does have a red tinge in there but it looked more like aged wood but I'll look more closely. The other place would be in the control cavity, which I just left the purple in, so an exploratory scrape in there wouldn't go amiss. Or it was a European market one which was white, but I not sure that's likely at the mo.

That's very kind of you, thanks. 😊 Stupidly though, I do most of my refins at home with all the wrong equipment. 😆 But yes, the processes and techniques are the same. 🙂

I actually get annoyed with myself that I buy all these very different sounding basses, and then EQ or modify them to sound the same, ie, my sound. What's the point? But they do look perdy! 😁

No redrilling at the heel. Or shortening, which would be the only other reason to fill part of the neck pocket if the bridge hasn't moved. The binding is intact and original. The neck has been refinished, albeit I'd say a long time ago as you can just tell the lacquer has been on there a long time. The tuner screw holes have been plugged and new holes for the Schallers drilled but it's all very aged. Even the mark from the sticker at the top of the headstock rear that had a number on, looking at images of others, is still there under the 'new' lacquer. I actually don't mind all the visable mods as they're so old they are now part of the bass, it's history if you like. It's certainly odd though.

It's a spray booth/oven for painting cars. The floor grid is filtered extraction. The entire ceiling is the filtered inlet for heated air. The sheeting on the wall is masking sheet to try and keep the overspray at bay, just replace when needed, which was about a month ago 😁. You can get a sticky coating for the walls but it tends to go brown with the heat unless regularly changed. There's room in this one for three cars at a time and it'll happily get to a toasty 80 degrees. Not for the bass though, the heat will expand the air in wood and pop little air bubbles in the finish, plus I don't know how hot you can get celluloid inlays before they start to melt, or worse. It just had a lovely 50 degree bask. 🙂

I know, I can't make sense of it. If you zoom in on the first picture of the body sanded down you can see the brownish filler used to fill all the 'original?' cavities. There was a central one and a matching outlined bridge one which you can just see the edge of below the musicman style later route. But the central pickup doesn't tally with any twin pickup Hofner of this style. The body shape and dimensions seems bang on even the slightly less than average thickness. Also why has the neck been moved? The bridge saddle hasn't been redrilled and from nut to bridge is bang on 30". I was hoping something would come to light when sanded but I'm still none the wiser. There is a route towards the neck so maybe if the neck pickup was surface mounted then that its wire route, and the central pickup route was another mod again. The bass could be over fifty years old so who knows what's happened in its life? I might be wrong but I feel sure it's the original body and neck.

It looks like it, and a few other reasonably high profile tribute acts playing decent sized venues. Hopefully he'll get the boot from them as there's probably quite a few honest bass players that like those gigs. Unfortunately I get the impression that he actually runs these bands.

Righty o, here we go. I managed to spend some time on the Hofner this week. I sanded the body down to see if it revealed any more than I could see through the tell tale sink marks around the filled cavities, it didn't really. There was a central pickup as well as the bridge one, and the route continued towards the neck for some reason. The shape, construction and age seem right for these Hofners. From research not all 185s had a top and bottom veneer, maybe the vinyl covered ones didn't get a veneer as the thickness of the vinyl would equal that of the veneer and as it would never be seen it wouldn't need a veneer. I'll never know so it's time to move on. I sanded the body down using a block to get the surface flat. The purple paint wasn't very even, not in coverage but just a bit bumpy, my guess is a mechanical sander was used and not kept flat. I couldn't remove all the old paint using a block as I was at risk if breaking through the sanding sealer to the raw wood, which I didn't want to do as then you get into the unnecessary grain filling to get back to a smooth surface. It's absolutely fine to paint over the existing paint as long as it's keyed sufficiently. Once flat I feathered the edges of the old paint with a sander using an interface pad. This is a 10mm thick foam backing pad on the sander before the sanding disc. It allows you to sand the rounded edges without risk of squaring them off, it basically just follows whatever shape you already have. Then it was primer time. The back held no surprises thankfully. The headstock got the same treatment but threw up some issues. The head did have a veneer and edges splintered in places sanding it. I filled these areas with a fine filler and got ready for primer. A quick blow off with compressed air to remove dust from the grain blew another piece of veneer off from the centre. I superglued that back in place and primed. I wasn't overly worried as the head will be getting a cover, more of that later. Once primed it looked terrible, the even colour of the primer revealed more little splintered edges. I filled these and used a heat gun lightly to dry. Even the low heat lifted the veneer so off it came, much better. A quick scrape to remove the glue and a sand and it was ready for primer, again. There was quite a bit of damage under the veneer, whether this is from the factory or the bass was used before the veneer was applied at a later date, I don't know either. That's better. The body and head were wet flatted using 800 grit ready for some colour. I've gone for a very off white, coupled with copper brown/bronze scratchplate inspired by the cream pearl and brown tortoise shell neck inlays. It's too cold to paint at home so I popped it in this little oven to keep warm 😁. All painted ready for a quick polish, then onto the hardware.

I sold my BBG5s a few months ago. I bought it new in 1999 and it was my only bass for ten years. Then for various reasons I went back to playing four strings and it just wasn't getting used enough, but I just didn't want to sell as it's a far better bass than it's monetary value. I eventually sold it as the reality is I'll probably never play it again.

Memphis Soul Stew - King Curtis

This one is clearer, had to heavily crop to remove other people.

Here you go,

Looks like he's involved in The Carpenters Experience & The Phil Collins Experience too. This is taken from Brookside Theatre's Facebook page from last year, guess who the "band manager" is? Much to our disappointment, the "band manager" of THE CARPENTERS EXPERIENCE and ONE MORE NIGHT - THE PHIL COLLINS EXPERIENCE has pulled both productions at the very last minute. Any and all money has been refunded and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment caused - this was sadly out of the theatre's control and has proved costly to the theatre and War Memorial charity. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1967307616689946&id=151775441576515

Run To The Hills - Ron Maiden

Another topic I know, but nearly every ad on Facebook (not from the marketplace) is a scam. Chinese companies, take your money, send the wrong item of a hugely lower value, then tell you to return it to China at your expense for a refund. Facebook simply cannot be niave enough not to realise what's going on but as long as the ad money keeps rolling in they don't care.

Tokyo Rose - UK Subs