NickA

Hey MikesWals .... as the owner of both kinds.. do you find any difference between your "New" and "Old" Wals? I was with mine (a 1980s 4 string mk 1 fretless) in bass direct this week, where they had a Mk1 and a Mk2 for sale at around £4500 (!!) they told me the new ones are about £5000 and have a two year waiting list and "anyway wouldn't be the same as an old one", hence the increasing value of the original Mk1s. Any truth in that? I'd quite fancy a fretted one to go with my fretless and can wait two years ... but would it be "the same". Frankly I can't see why a new WAL would be any different from an old one - unless that endangered brazillian rain forest mahogany has all gone ...and the new ones look at least as nice as the originals.

sold for £400. bargain ... maybe

My (1880 ish Markneukirchen) bass fell over and the finger board came off ... plus lots of things came loose inside. It cost (the insurance people) £1500 and two months for me to get it back .. but now it's a) much stronger, doesn't buzz. It's still too big for my hands and I considered trading it in for a 3/4 size, but after months of looking and borrowing a "much better" bass for a month I decided to keep it (partly because the dealers were a bunch of profiteering crooks). Go for it. Once you have a bass you like, stick with it.

Impossible to say without trying it, (from the photos I can't even see if it's real wood or laminate or if the finger board is ebony or painted "hard wood") but without a sound post you can't try it! Retrieving / Replacing the sound post is quite difficult and you're talking £100 or so to get it replaced and properly set up. That or many hours fishing about inside trying to snag it with a loop of fishing line and many hours more tweaking it about 'till it sounds right. (edit, bloke on another thread got his music teacher to replace the post for a tenner ... so I overestimated a bit!)