Bassassin

Just had a PM chat with @eubassix, looks like it's 1992, which looks about right!

TBH that's a bit fairer on the seller, you'd be robbing him at £100!

Gorgeous little thing & a total bargain, I have a V7 fretless & it's a superb bass. I do have a bit of short-curious GAS & a U5 is high on my (very theoretical!) list - I can tell you there's a blue one for sale on BC at the moment for a LOT more than you paid for that...

Mid 80s to 90s, made by Cort in Korea if it's an early one. Shame the serial's not visible as it should be dateable from that. Very pretty bass & looks in excellent condition for its presumed age. The Hohner Pro range were generally extremely well-made & playable instruments, +1 to @Lfalex v1.1's comments about the pre, I have a B2A with a similar setup.

Not so much made under license, as simply a rebrand of a model made by Moridaira. This was very common during the Japanese guitar-making boom in the 70s, a variety of identical instruments, usually copies but also original designs like this, appearing under numerous different names. I don't think Hohner ever manufactured guitars & basses in-house, in the 70s & early 80s they came from Moridaira, and from maybe 1983, production moved to Cort in Korea. Most of the output from those factories would have been sold under other brands too.

JJ Burnel was the reason I picked up a bass. Heard The Stranglers & thought - I want to make that noise. Me & a bunch of school pals decided to form a band (none of us could play anything!) and no-one else wanted to play bass... Oh good!

Aside from the pickups it looks like it could be the bass this guy on TB is talking about: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/riverhead-by-headway-spector-model.937983/ It's not the short-lived Spector knockoff he mentions, but it's the closest thing I can find to the OP's pic. I'd say the chances of easily finding one of these on Ebay or Reverb etc is incredibly low, Riverhead was never a major brand & even the most common models are like the proverbial rocking horse poo. Best bet would probably be keeping an eye on Japanese sellers like Ishibashi - inevitably, obscure 80s MIJ stuff is much more common in Japan.

Stockbridge? Eye-wateringly expensive and packed with hipsters! Anyway. Years ago someone on here did the same A/B with a BA2 (which the hi-mass is a clone of) and a standard BBOT. The consensus was that the standard bridge sounded better - and listening to this I think that bears it out. Noticeably much more top-end and definition with the BBOT, slap sounds tighter & more focused, and despite all the claims made about cast bridges the sustained notes, while not necessarily longer on the standard bridge, certainly sound fuller & seem not to fade so quickly. I suspect comparing the waveforms would bear that out. In fairness though, not different enough that you'd notice in a mix, and nothing you couldn't fix with EQ if you cared enough.

Yep - exactly the same as my first-ever bass, which I bought brand new in 1978. Mine was branded Grant, which was the name of the retailer which imported & distributed them. Not mine but this is identical: Mine was really a piece of junk & not an ideal bass for a beginner - I got a better instrument a year or so later & the Grant became a project/beater. Likely a lot of its problems were setup - shops would sell these without any kind of setup & adjustment, and the likes of teenage me had no idea how to make it better. Anyway - old Japanese basses are something of an interest of mine & I do know a bit about these. Made in the mid 70s by Chushin Gakki, which was a very large-scale manufacturer, and sold worldwide under hundreds of different brand names. Body is ply & pickups are single-coil copies of Hofner 'Staple' humbuckers. Old Japanese stuff like this is becoming pretty collectable and yours looks like it might be in pretty decent condition for a 45+ year old bass. They do have some value these days so I'd avoid making any irreversible modifications to it if you think you're likely to sell it later.

I might be wrong but it doesn't exactly scream 'handmade in Italy' to me, with its scarf-jointed neck, generic hardware (inc Schaller knockoff bridge), wonky tuner positioning etc. I'd say AliExpress Special with its headstock messily 'refinished' and a little tin medallion (held on with a B&Q brass woodscrew) stuck on the back. Ambitious but (probably) rubbish. Just checked the seller's other items/sold listings & he has a few other suspiciously generic & knockoffy basses & guitars with the same stickers & tin badges.

Tony played on 8 BC albums & dozens of non-album tracks. Great player (and certainly an influence of mine) but that's a significant output.

It would, and it's not really practical. There's not a huge amout of travel on the tuners so having a straight pull through the clamp, and being able to haul on the string with pliers while you clamp it is useful. Would be a lot more awkward if they were bending to go through the headstock & into the clamp.

Late 70s/early 80s MIJ, made by Moridaira Gakki, best known as the manufacturer of Prince's Hohner MadCat Tele copy. Not much info around about the bass, but the same thing would have also been sold branded Morris (Moridaira's house-brand), Lotus (US) and probably Bill Lawrence & H.S. Anderson. Can't find any info on the bass but some nice pics (& German text, if you're multi-lingual) of the guitar version here: https://best-vintage-guitars.de/morris_global_sound_neck_through.html There's an FB group for owners & enthusiasts of Moridaira - you may get more info there, & they'll certainly be interested in seeing it. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1978659485756691 Edit - turns out the German site has the same bass as the Hohner branded Tacoma, which would have been an importer/distributor rebrand: https://best-vintage-guitars.de/tacoma_neckthrough_grand_bass.html Search 'Morris Grand Bass' & you'll find more pics.

Did some Googling & reading, and according to Frank Meyers' 60s MIJ guitars book it's a Hoshino Stagemaster, and (unsurprisingly) not really anything to do with Ibanez. There's only one pic both online & in Meyers' book - and it's this: The bass in question is a resto, clearly identified & rebuilt using this pic as a reference: https://www.guitarscanada.com/threads/1962-ibanez-stagemaster.279600/ Not sure what it's worth but a lot less than he wants.

If I do it (and it's a big 'if'!) I'd probably just re-shape around the existing string clamp position & still use the same truss access. Could re-visit the idea of having the clamp on the back.

I'm having second thoughts about the headstock/headstump/headflap. I don't particularly like it & having found a stand which has tuner clearance & doesn't need neck support, there's no longer much of a rationale for its existence. It'd look a lot better with something more minimalistic, and reshaping it/refinishing it would be easy enough given it's an oil finish - so watch this space... That said, I am a spectacularly unmotivated creature so realistically, I'm unlikely to get beyond the side-eyeing it and tutting phase. There's always something more important to avoid doing.

Was very pleased with the cheap Chinese rosewood/maple knobs I put on my recently completed Whatthef*ckenbacker headless project. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194295605683 They turned out to look better in real life than the pics in the ad. Push fit so may not work with solid shafts.

The 4-string neck looks like it's a lined fretless.

Dunno if the music's back or not, but the enormous flappy trousers definitely are!

Suddenly, a wild American noob appears! etc.

You might be right - it does look like it should mirror the shape of the lower part.

Got to be.

I think the Schaller tuners (M4, by the looks) place it at 70s rather than 60s. The pickups are Baldwin, (Google tells me 60s Italian-made single coils with double rows of poles) with bits of the lettering looking deliberately removed to make them read 'ALDW'. Odd. Bridges look of similar vintage but not ringing any bells. I'd hazard a guess it's early/mid 70s, and probably inspired by some of the oddities played by the likes of Squire & Rutherford at the time. Very likely a one off by a luthier or talented 'visionary' home builder! Proper prog bass, that is.

Clear acrylic worked a treat on mine. It's one of these: https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/pickguard/boston-m4v-110-tr-1-ply-pickguard-for-sire-marcus-miller-v-transparent But be warned - it's a poor fit & the pickup hole & heel cutout needed lots of careful filing to get it to fit. Looks great now but took hours of fiddling to get it right.

Another Essex Recording Studios stone cold bargain, right there.