Bassassin

That's certainly interesting, I have a catalogue scan featuring an SB-1200 which has P/J pickups: Found this image whilst ID-ing my own SB-ELT (the one in the middle) - this is from 1989-ish, making these basses post-Matsumoku. I've read that Tokai Gakki built high-end Arias at this point but no confirmation. The Ebay bass looks like a mix of SB1200 and SB-LTD, having the dot neck, control layout & Gotoh bridge of the 1200 and the Alembic soapbars from the LTD. I'm tempted to think it's a different model and the name the seller's giving is his best guess.

Whistling. Every second advert seems to be soundtracked with plinky ukeleles overdubbed with this anaemic hissy hooting. Makes me want to amputate lips with a rusty razorblade.

No sh!t! I've posted some pics on the Vintage Japanese Guitars FB group, to see if any of the minds greater than mine will have an idea what it might be. Tbh it might not even be MIJ - could be top-end Korean, or even Italian - some of the Melody copies were very similar to MIJ stuff of the era. I'm inferring from what (little) I can find that Yasuki was a UK importer rebrand and like most of them, they probably imported from a number of different sources.

Good to see some pics - that's interesting, a couple of things I wouldn't expect on an MIJ bass of this era. It's definitely a bit different to SH73's Jazz. First - the neckplate - not seen one like this on a 70s MIJ before, s/n looks sequential & a low number. The body looks like mahogany, from the grain, the natural ones are usually sen ash on this sort of thing. Did a bit of searching for Yasuki & was interested to see that many of the results are guitars with built-in effects. These are pretty common branded as Fresher, and this is a brand strongly associated with Chushin Gakki. Looks like a one-piece neck with an unbound fretboard. Quite unusual too. If it's OK, I might steal your pics & put them on the FB Vintage MIJ page I use, see if anyone there knows about Yasuki.

Gawd. No idea. Bunch of wishful thinking: Sell some basses. Sell some more basses. Finish the f*cking album. Get a gigging band together, if I can find a drummer with no major mental health issues. Getting to the point that actual ability's looking like a distant second place.

Unless there's another Bognor Regis in Nagano Prefecture, I don't think it's in Japan. Which is a pity when you think about it - because these days the seller needs to obtain the appropriate CITES clearance to export it, so chances are it'd end up getting impounded and subsequently destroyed by UK Customs. Which would be a relief.

First things first - it's not a Jedson, is it? This is fairly elementary stuff, Jedsons will say Jedson on the pointy end, and this one doesn't. Having cleared that up, I do know a bit about these. Probably made by Sakai Mokko, early 70s, pretty common. It is a low-end, budget starter bass and probably would have cost about £30 new, probably out of someone's mum's catalogue. It won't be very good - this is not dissimilar to the sort of thing I was unfortunate enough to start with (actually, it's further down the food chain) and that nearly put me off playing at all. If you want a playable, useable musical instrument, then buy one of those - not this. If you want a piece of ugly, overpriced trash for striking hipster poses in the mirror or hanging on the wall to try & impress friends who don't play instruments - knock yourself out.

I know the body wasn't from an Antoria but can't for the life of me remember what it was, possibly an Eros. What it is, is definitely a re-badged Fujigen 2365B, the exact same thing as Antoria, Ibanez and a whole lot of other 70s importer/exporter brands. The body dates to 1972 from the codes on the original pickups. Thought the shadow of the neck's logo looked like Antoria but it wasn't clear enough to be certain, but the fact it was a near-perfect fit for pocket & screws confirms it was from the same factory & made to the same template. It's a later neck because the maple-board Fujigens with correct nut & heel-adjust truss rod didn't appear until about 1974, along with the correct type of pickups. I quite like these chrome Maxon pickups, they were very common on various 70s MIJs & I've had several sets in different basses. They are variable in output though and later ones do seem to be a lot hotter. I have one in a R*ck*nb*ck*r copy bitsa which reads 11k or so - typically early ones seem to be around 4 or 5. Despite the double rows of poles they're single coils. I think they're in lots of old J copies because they pre-date accurate Jazz-type pickup clones, and in the 70s J copies, they were all hidden under ashtrays anyway.

It's reassuring to know BC now has its own Irony Police to help keep us safe, isn't it?

I used to buy & sell a lot of vintage MIJ stuff a few years ago so I tend to look at them from the perspective of what I'd hope to get for it in a 99p, no-reserve auction. No brand name & no definite provenance (beyond MIJ, mid 70s) makes it a slightly harder sell. Original, fully-working condition is a big help though, and if it plays & sounds good then that's a winner. This is a good-quality, accurate copy which means it's higher up the food chain than a lot of what's on the market - those Grants & Columbuses, for example. That said, these don't go for mega-money, if I was selling it I'd hope for £250ish but realistically expect somewhere between £150 - £200. If you keep it & mod it, always bear in mind you might want to sell it later, so keep the original parts - and I would advise against making irreversible mods. These are rare instruments and have become pretty collectable - don't be surprised if it's worth less with a set of expensive pickups, BA2 & a preamp than it would be with its original bits. Seen that happen a few times!

Yes, read the updated description.Too bad no-one knows anything about any of these things, ain't it? Fact is the exact same thing sells on the Fakers FB group for £400 or so, no way will he get what he wants for it. I hope.

Thought about it, decided there was no point. If he's done enough research to know an Ibanez 2388B exists, then he'll have seen enough pictures of them to know perfectly well his bass isn't one.

Squirt a bit of switch cleaner in the pots, will probably sort them out. Useful stuff to have if you own a bass (or anything else with pots & switches), tbh. It's worth remembering that the likes of Grant & Columbus are importer brand names and not manufacturers. Very few of any of the names on MIJ guitars are actual manufacturer names - and this one looks like it was sold without a brand name, as many were. Fwiw Grant & Columbus appear to mostly have been the same instruments & are thought to have been Chushin Gakki products. I don't think this is a Chushin, though - they didn't use that style of neckplate, as far as I know.

This place is becoming really odd.

No there isn't. It's a Shaftesbury. Being sold by a liar.

Is your Washy a B20 Stage? Malko's got the 8-string! Sold my T40 because it broke my back...

here's a Fender copy I regret selling: This is the Basschat Bitsa Jazz, so-called because all the parts came from BC members, with the exception of the tuners. Body was a '72 Fujigen, dated from the codes on the original (dud) Maxon pickups. Can't for the life of me remember what brand it was, got the body off an (ex) member called Tino - from an Ebay sale. The neck came from Toasted (is he still here?) so long ago I think it was back in the Bassworld days. Ashamed to say I can't remember who the pickups came from - particularly considering he gave them to me for nowt! Don't know the date of the neck or the original brand - could just about see the ghost of the original logo & thought it might be Antoria. The fact the neck was a perfect fit for the body, and the screwholes lined up near-perfectly, suggest it probably was. Anyway, after a lot of polishing & fettling this built up into a lovely looking, sounding & playing Japanese J copy, but since I already had a lovely looking, sounding & playing MIJ Jazz copy, I got rid. Traded it on a local FB group for a very roadworn Aria SB-Elite Black & Gold - which by any measure was a ridiculously good deal. But a couple of months later my lovingly restored vintage MIJ Jazz turned up again on the same board, battered, frets wrenched out and absolutely ruined. Hurt, that did.

Malko's also on most of the vintage MIJ groups, he's got a stunning collection of old Yamaki Washburns - I keep threatening to pop 'round & rob him while he's out! He does make some interesting bitsas - was very tempted by a Tele with too many pickups & switches the other day!

Hooky played a Hondo because he didn't have much money back then! The Hondos (made by Samick, in Korea, from sub-firewood grade ply) were pretty much bottom of the Faker foodchain in the 70s, apart from those horrible shortscale Kays, which don't count. Decent MIJs come up quite regularly on the Faker FB group, if you're not already a member.

Original Futuramas are a bit off my radar, but these recent Futurama-brand J copies popped up on Ebay 5 or 6 years ago, with sellers claiming association with the "original" brand and asking somewhat inflated prices on the basis of that. Doubtless a perfectly competent Chinese Jazz clone - maybe a bit of curiosity value for the name, but that's all.

That *really* doesn't matter - as far as FMIC would be concerned every single one is a violation of their registered trademark. See above. I don't know if Fender has a policy of not wasting their time on small fry, or if BC just hasn't been noticed yet - but we are allowing (and from the evidence of this thread) advocating trademark violation. Not sure how sensible this is...

Fair point about criminal law but IMO that's become a bit of a red herring in this discussion - if any sh!t (no matter how improbably) was to hit BC's fan over this it would be 100% trademark/IP violation related. As I said I don't think we should ban the sale of fakey Fender branded basses but it does seem to me that what we're doing is we're getting away with it because we're pretty inconspicuous. Just seems sensible to be very, very clear about what's for sale.

Fujigen used the lower-half stamped plate (the same as on this bass) up until late 1975 when they introduced the use of serial numbers. The (more common) upper-half stamped plates were never used by Fgn and don't seem to be used by one specific factory. Like many MIJ details it's often easier to define who didn't do something rather than who did - so we know Fujigen, Matsu, Kasuga, Moridaira, etc didn't use them. We also know Chushin Gakki definitely did, but so did a lot of others. There's very litle that's exclusive to any one manufacturer though, certainly during the 70s copy era. I mentioned that Cimar was owned by Hoshino, but Hoshino's not a manufacturer but a trading company - they contracted Fujigen to build Ibanez and some post-copy era Cimars but I don't think they made the copy stuff - they're all indentifiably different to Ibanez copies - which were all generic Fujigens anyway, and were available with different brands from other importer/exporters. Pickups on the bass here appear to be originals, these round-end types appear in a lot of MIJ copies.