Bassassin

It's a little c-spanner shaped thing. I've seen a pic (some MIJ guitar tuners use them too) but never had one.

Those are torque-adjustment collars on the tuners. They would've been supplied with a little adjusting tool when new!

Mid/late 70s or very early 80s - beyond that there were very few MIJ copies (outwith replica-level stuff) being exported, as Japanese manufacturers moved to original designs for export, & budget instrument production went to Korea & Taiwan. Anyway - this is nice. Looks like a solid timber body (not ply or butcher block) and a one-piece neck, and a total steal for £110. CMI, as I expect everyone knows, was Jim Marshall's spinoff brand, originally set up (iirc) as a way around a restrictive distribution deal Marshall was tied into in the early 70s. Most CMIs tend to be fairly budget-level, but this looks pretty high-end. It's interesting this one has the block logo, rather than the Marshall-ised italic version with the large 'M', which I'd tended to assume was used on later instruments. It's not Fujigen (the factory which made Ibanez & many others) but I would say it's the same factory that produced most Cimars. There's some debate about that but from what's currently understood it was likely Chushin Gakki or Kiso Suzuki. Those tuners appear on lots of Cimars and also many late 70s/80s Tokai Fender clones. A variation, with a cast key rather than a clover leaf, appears on practically every Yamaha BB bass from this era. I'd be inclined to think it's only the knobs that may not be original - you'd expect a replacement scratchplate to have needed a few new screwholes, but from what I can see, these all match up. Unsure about the pickup, unlike a lot of Japanese units I've never seen a P or J type with any identifying marks.

Thought I'd wait for pics, but yes - very nice Fujigen 4001 type, from 1990 but the only change from the mid/late 70s 2388B, (once they'd updated from the Maxon mockmudbuckers & full-width glitter inlays) was to swap the checked binding for pinstripe. Nice little detail that makes it less of a clone, but it still has the 1/2" pickup spacing & tug bar of the early basses. Greco's a Japan-market brand, so they continued selling copy instruments like these for many years after they stopped exporting them - wonder when Fujigen finally stopped making Fakers?

Yes, that was what you said (while apparently discussing SBs & Thunder II/IIIs) but here we are, comparing two midrange, bolt-neck Matsumoku basses, a Westone Spectrum & Aria Cardinal which, when you look, aren't really "virtually the same instruments". You've chosen a curious comparison because apart from wildly different aesthetics, the hardware is different, pickup position is different and the poles on the Aria MB3 pickup & those on the Westone's Magnabass II are reversed. Not sure how easy that would be to change, really - if you turn them around they'll still be the same. They probably did use the same Gotoh tuners, though. It is fair to say - apart from the weird thing on that particular Westone - that Matsumoku basses from this era did often have variations on the same tapered 2-a-side headstock design - Aria, Westone, Westbury, Vantage all used this - and often had similar symmetrical body shapes. I'd contend this was more a fashion thing than a manufacturer trait, both design features crop up on instruments from various factories - but that doesn't stop some people from really wanting their Washburn, or even Italian-made Eko BX7 to be a Matsumoku! I expect so! Looks like the brand continued for a while after the demise of Matsumoku in '87 (as did other connected names, like Vantage) - I've seen MIK Thunders and they're identifiably different to the MIJ ones. I'm sure there are - but of what? On the whole I tend to know what I'm looking at, if not for.

To be anal, that's not really the case. Aria SB/SB-R/SB-Elite basses & Westone through-necks used entirely different pickups, hardware & electronics. The 'classic' SB series had near-parallel necks with wide nuts & narrow bridge spacing, so would feel very different to any Westone. Westone started life as Matsumoku's house-brand so it's reasonable to think they were made there - although there are some Korean Westones, which are presumably post '87. Aria on the other hand was predominantly made by Matsumoku, although the fact a lot of copy-era Aria stuff is identifiably from Fujigen & Kasuga probably says it's highly likely other factories were involved in manufacture of the original designs too. There's still a tendency for people to assume that every late 70s/early 80s through-neck bass or guitar was made by Matsumoku, but the reality is every Japanese & Korean manufacturer - as well as Italian, Brazilian & elsewhere - were making Alembic-inspired instruments. I could reel off a big list of defunct factories no-one's heard of - but you're bored already, so I'll spare you that.

I don't really get the whole 'guilty secret' thing regarding music. Fair enough when I was a 15 year old punk/headbanger kid; admitting I found Abba's 'Arrival' album utterly joyous probably wouldn't have been easy for my tunnel-vision peer group to accept. But as a grown-up prog rocker/metalhead, I know that good music's good music, talented artists are in all genres - even the ones miserable old gits like (most of) us moan about 'not being real music'. If it's good, it's good, if you like it, then you like it. Taylor Swift is a genius.

Hoshino Gakki Ten, owner of Ibanez, has always had issues with the fiction that other instruments were 'really an Ibanez'. Back in the 70s, people conflating instruments from other brands with Ibanez was enough of an issue for Hoshino that they did this: The irony was that the guitars at the time - copies of American designs made exclusively by Fujigen Gakki - were in fact sold under dozens of other entirely unrelated names around the world, some of which (including UK brand Antoria) even had the same redesigned headstock shape. I mention this because I have something of an interest in the 70s/80s MIJ era, and have always found it curious how people often want their guitar/bass to be something it's not. You see that currently with the Rockinbetter Rick 4003 copies, where people really badly want them to be Tokais, but they stubbornly remain the unrelated Korean/Chinese knockoffs that they are. These Brice basses look like good, if fairly generic budget instruments, much like Thomann's Harley Benton range - including their similar, but by no means identical fan-fret single cut. The only connection is likely to be that they may have been made in a factory contracted by Hoshino for other instruments. I think the takeaway from this is to reinforce how good inexpensive instruments can be, compared with the trash a lot of us had to make do with decades ago when starting out.

The neck construction's completely different - the HB has a 5-piece neck with a beefy-looking volute, while the Brice has a one-piece with a really obvious scarf joint & no volute. I know which one I'd be more worried about if it fell off its stand...

It's nice, but £445's a bit steep! If you've ever noticed cheapo Satellite through-neck P types, circa 1980-ish, this is basically the same thing. This one's been modded somewhat - additional J pickup & nice Schaller M4S tuners (possibly Japanese copies), and looks in pretty good order. I'm familiar with Maison from the early 90s & only fairly recently came across their earlier output, this 'small Korean manufacturer' thing appears to be a myth, and the fact this is a budget early 80s bass, probably made by Samick, supports that. There's a Maison FB group, and here's an unmodded fretted version of the same bass. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1458034901099196/permalink/3437722686463731/ I had one of the Satellites years ago - mine was in a bit of a state but I do remember it being very heavy & having a massive tree-trunk neck, and the construction being nothing like as good as the through-neck MIJ basses it was trying to imitate. It's possible the build/materials on this are a little better but it's a close relative. Considering the upgrades & the condition, if it plays as good as it looks I'd think maybe £250-£300 was a realistic price, but £445 seems a bit much.

Leo Fender.

And they still often sit in the £150 - £200 bracket, despite some unrealistic BINs on Ebay.

Stranglers - Peaches. Had no idea how to tune my bass when I first started playing, so I had to re-learn it once I did. Unsurprisingly, it suddenly made a lot more sense! Went on to learn the entire Rattus Norvegicus album, which on reflection, was a great tutorial & has probably had a long-term influence!

Interesting, I suppose it's not too gopping for a singlecut (particularly the sparkly purple one), but I think if I gave in to cheapo fan-fret curiosity, it'd be the G4M one - £50 less & definitely less of a porker. https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/G4M-972-Fanned-Fret-Bass-Guitar-Red-Burl-Burst/5DUX Edit - wasn't paying attention - the 5er's £279

Exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. Probably a bit less neck-divey than the more symmetrical models, too.