Bassassin

I am sure about it - it's a piece of sh!t bitsa (a 'sh!tsa', maybe) with a ghastly obvious-fake relic finish. The pickup's unlikely to be from a 'Japanese Hondo' as the overwhelming majority were Korean, & the occasional MIJ example would probably have had actual Dimarzios. Which I'm sure the listing would mention! So I'm saying cheap, new, probably Chinese body & neck; glued-on fretboard (no skunk stripe) & slightly wonky headstock shape. And touches like the chewed-up pozis holding the ashtrays on (meaning no pics of the apparently awesome pickup or hardware) are reassuringly professional, arent they? 👍 This is the same seller trying to fob off an MIJ 'Fairytale' (70s Swiss dealer brand) Jazz copy as something it's really not, and whose completed items contain things (which all have awful, fakey, grimy-looking relic refins) that sometimes do not quite appear to match their decriptions.

It'd be the nicest-playing Jazz or Jazz copy that was within budget. Probably end up with a Squier Affinity, or maybe a Classic Vibe if there was a sale on.

Could be MIJ but not sure. Looks like they've been white originally & yellowed over time, so not the cream covers some MIJ P types use, also the lugs look quite big - an oddity of 70s/80s MIJ P types is that they often have smaller lugs than standard.

Not sure why that would be. Anyway, the two things are hardly the same - bisexuality's just a boring, everyday sexual orientation, not the hot-topic, divide-and-conquer political punchbag that transgender discussions have somehow become.

Don't think BC's ever done a bisexuality thread - or any other topic about contributors' inclinations. Wonder if we're grown-up enough?

To be fair they weren't all sh!t - I've had one or two Columbuses they played fine after a proper setup. Pickups were rubbish, though.

Loads of people who heard: Fück you I'm not doing my homework! Fück you I won't tidy my bedroom!

WTF? Eco-Butcher's Apron? Ghastly.

That'll be the Frog Bass: I'm off to pick up an old Avon EB copy for £60, some green Halfords rattlecan & a bit of tacky bling. Pretty sure I've got a scabby P pickup in the spares draw, probably doesn't work but that's just a detail. My painstaking artistry will definitely be worth the extra £900.

Don't think I've encountered one of these before. Nice, that.

I'm a massive DD fan (one of my first influences) and this does look like a pretty accurate Billion $ Bass replica - but this is a £200 bass with £30 worth of mirrors & rhinestones stuck on it. And £5 or so for the superglue. I think for £1000 I'd want Dennis to have stuck the mirrors on himself. And then show me how to play Gutter Cat & Dead Babies properly.

Quite correct - and they were a bit better than Columbus; in the 70s FCN had a 3-tier range, Satellite at the bottom, Columbus in the middle & Kimbara at the top. From what I've seen, most but not all copy-era Kimbaras were Matsumoku - this Ripper has an Aria-branded counterpart that's likely to be identical. There are some Kimbara oddities with effects circuitry which are the same as the Japan-market Fresher brand, these were made by Chushin Gakki. I had a very nice Kimbara L6S copy, Matsumoku-made, very much a sibling to the Ripper. Was a bit of a resto.

Very tidy-looking example. No idea how reasonable the price is (£550) but you'd pay a bit more for a 'real' one.

Never seen one of these before. If he hadn't made that mistake with the price & stuck an extra '9' on, I might have had a punt. Schaller 460, for Gibson 2-point mounting. Got one in my spares box for a project that never happened.

Absolutely correct - apart from the tiny detail that no lawsuit ever took place. Gibson/Norlin issued their notification of intended legal action against Elger Hoshino in June 1977, presumably oblivious to the fact that Ibanez headstock shapes on their Gibson copies had been changed to be non-infringing a year earlier. None of the other US manufacturers took legal action (Fender would have been on iffy ground, having piched their best-known headstock design from Bigsby), and in fact there's an arguable case that Hoshino have more of a claim to Rickenbacker's designs than Rickenbacker themselves... I've heard of most 70s & 80s Japanese brands, but strangely, not 'Fairytale'. Could be an incredibly obscure Japan-only marque, or perhaps the clue's in the name. Edit - Done a quick bit of digging & Fairytale was a brand owned by Swiss dealer Musik Kuhn in Zurich. This comes from a 2006 forum discussion & MIJ knowledge has expanded somewhat since then, but the suggestion was they were either Matsumoku or Fujigen. Moving on, I found this, which is neither: https://www.vintageandrare.com/product/Fairytale-Jazz-Bass-70s-Reissue-1975-Natural-55695#prettyPhoto That's a pretty generic early/mid 70s J copy, and the truss cover shape & 6-bolt plate suggest it's made by Moridaira. Mats & Fgn never used plates like that. Also found a very replica-y looking ES345 copy: https://reverb.com/uk/item/29921483-fairytale-es-345-stereo-ca-1978-japan-walnut More in line with the level of the bass we're discussing, high quality but nothing particularly unusual, tbh. Anyway, I'm bored now, think I'll go out on me bike while it's still sunny.

This looks to be an 80s Aria Integra with 3x DiMarzio Model Js and a Kahler trem. I'm leaning towards it being a highly modded SB-Integra (predecessor of the later IGBs), like this: https://reverb.com/item/319578-aria-pro-ii-sb-integra-bass-1986-black

The only vintage copy of this I'm aware of is a Fujigen/Ibanez from 1972. Never seen one in the wild and probably never made it to the UK. This is the only known pic & the OP's ain't one of these! I'd go for butchered real Ampeg.

Only a matter of time before a Free Speech Fundamentalist turned up to unironically scream at people to keep their opinions to themselves. And get the thread locked, if this follows the typical BC pattern.

And I've spent 17-odd years with this mental image of you: I am disappoint.

Ah - the old 'adding a y to a single-syllable name to create an affectionate diminutive' ploy! I know all your sly linguistic tricks, that's what they teach at Pedant School.

You're up against OCD and pedantry here, fella. Because not in the lyrics of the song, it wasnt!

Off the top of my head the Banana Splits were: Fleagle. Bingo. Drooper. And SNORK! Snork is an objectively awesome name for a pet, in the event I ever have another it'll be a toss up between that, Sprocket and Bloop. 👍

Unless it's been modded since Ebay, it's a different bass. Only 2 knobs on the Ebay one.

The bolt-neck from the '00s SB range was an SB40, & according to this 2005 catalogue there was a 5-string, (SB40/5, not pictured) so maybe that. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkvqj9fh5qgcjs4/2005 Aria Catalog.pdf?dl=0 (Page 15) Can only find a couple of pics of any model of this bass online, obviously not too common!

According to the blurb, the bass was originally built for Matthew Pegg - son of Dave Pegg. Dave was so enamoured of his Riverhead Unicorn that he composed/named a Fairport track in honour of it. Well, according to my ex-bandmate, who's a massive Fairport fan, he did... Indeed - clearly by the early 80s Japanese guitar makers still hadn't got over copying other designs! Fwiw there were natural finish Riverheads - possibly Japan-only, like most of the cool stuff! Given a choice I dunno if I'd pick the Rob Armstrong over this...