Bassassin

Always fancied one of these (and a Quantum, and a Super Headless!), really wish I'd picked one up when they were all over the place for £50-£60. Silly money these days, if they ever come up. Which they almost never do.

This has been discussed at length of the FB Rickenfakers group. It's a mess, it has the collapsing neck pocket issue which affects many through-neck Rick copies and real Ricks. Someone has tried to remedy this by roughly routing the bridge into the body - but it still looks like it has an action you could stick your arm under. It's had an amateurish-looking refret which has hacked up the neck binding, and probably had the lacquer stripped from the fretboard at the same time. With an obviously replaced scratchplate, it's also not unlikely the trc is as well, so it might not even be a Maya. The price is idiotic considering the issues, £300 would be pushing it.

Can only echo what's already been said. The neck's not original and has been de-fretted. The body is from a generic midrange 70s MIJ bass, it's ply or butcher-block, as the black oversprays which cover the laminations indicate. It was very likely made by Chushin Gakki, who turned out thousands of these under hundreds of different names. Those round-end pickups appear in quite a few low to mid-level MIJ basses and in my experience are quite thin-sounding & low output. Best thing about it's the tuners. €200 is too much for that - for a little bit more you could likely pick up a used Sire V7 fretless, (I have one, they're phenomenal basses), or for a few € less, Thomann will sell you a very nice Harley Benton Jaco clone.

Value's always tricky but I'd guess at least £200-£250. These days MIJ prices can be surprising in both directions.

Late 70s, IMO more likely early 80s, but definitely not '86, though. These were made by Moridaira Gakki (same factory that made Prince's famous MadCat Hohner Tele) and the serial sticker's a 100% ID. £50 was daylight robbery! As yet it's not possible to date a Mori from the serial number, although there does appear to be a pattern to them. There are 5 & 6 figure variations, 8- prefixes are the most common although I've seen some starting with 7 and 0. I actually bought an 86- prefix Hohner guitar in 1984 (new old stock, so a couple of years old by then) which I hope confirms the number's not related to the year, unless I've been sponaneously time-travelling again. Lovely bit of flame on the fretboard.

Sort of looks like a Soviet era manufacturer's take on angular 80s styling. Kinda like it.

Aria Pro II CSB, not sure what model, probably 300 or 380.

Fender aren't new to acrylic - they made this (designed by Roger Rossmeisl) for Carl Wilson in 1972. Would love to see a bass version! https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/lot-445324.aspx

Awesome - I do love a see-through bass, can't wait to see the finished article. I put together a cheapo acrylic P a few years back, picked up the body from an Axl-branded bass for a few quid & a maple/blocks neck: Any excuse...

The Ars Volta Cünting Crows Lice Cooper Astodon System Of A Don Lipknot Anel Witch

You are MDP and I claim my £5.

That's a better-looking bass than the real thing - more Dolphin-influenced than a straight copy. Shame they put the fakey logo & inlays on it.

I read the name of the P copy as 'Pacemaker'. Slightly disappointed when I re-read it correctly. Also disappointed I don't need a P or J at the moment, these look good for the money.

Pricing here is predicated on the notion of older = better, which given that they're both Fujigen basses, is nonsense. And FWIW an MIJ 'E' serial isn't specific, it's 85-87, if you want to split hairs. My opinion - maple looks better, lighter is always better, and the £75 saving buys you a black/white/black pickguard and cream pickup covers to transform the aesthetics from generic P bass to ultimate rock monster P bass. Which you should definitely do.

And all of us ignorant little brand-snob scrotes went - "What??? Westone are cheap rubbish!"

Looks like there are 5 members pretty close to me, one of whom appears to be literally around the corner from where I lived a few years ago. So now I know where they are, I can pop round and rob them. Which may, in the broader scheme of things, prove to be something of a flaw in the concept.

Already on it, & I'm pretty sure it's not any of the Fernandes or Kawai Alembic clones. Looks a bit hand-made & (dare I say it) a tad crude to be anything coming out of Japan in the '80s. Fernandes catalogue here, check p. 18: https://www.fernandes.co.jp/fer_wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1981_vol1.pdf And conveniently, a BCer is selling a Kawai version: I'd be inclined to think it's a luthier-made one off, and possibly (although people on here will know better than me) a very early Jaydee.

There's very little info around about the '00s SB basses. Yours appears to be some sort of halfway thing between an SB303 (which looks to be much the same apart from having big SB-Elite/SB-R type inlays) and an SB40, which has a different bridge & control layout. The whole range is probably in a catalogue somewhere but I can't find anything later than mid '90s, which is too early for these.

Can't please everyone! In fairness it's a necessary compromise (IMO, anyway) because the sticky-outy tuners mean I won't be able to park the bass in a corner or on a rack/stand, so it's gonna have to hang by the neck. Possibly until dead. If not for that, the headstump would've been a lot more minimal & just big enough to accomodate the string retainer block.

Worth keeping pics of this just in case you need an image to demonstrate the concept of 'just because you can, it doesn't mean you should'.

Been a while since I posted a bass so it may have changed, but the big problem with ParcelFarce was that they were always delighted to upsell you insurance for the value of the contents, while carefully omitting to mention that PF insurance did not cover musical instruments.

The front's properly lacquered - thick, gloss poly over a flamed veneer. Decided to leave it, but seeing how nice the back's ended up looking, I'm not sure that was the right choice. I doubt I could have removed the poly without destroying the veneer though.

A month since my last update, and progress has been, let's say - incremental. After applying a couple more coats, the plan was to give it a week or so to let the layers of Danish Oil harden off, after which a final (or so I thought!) light sand to smooth it, before one last thin coat of oil, which should have resulted in the expected lustrous, satiny sheen I've achieved from this process before. The hardening phase was rudely extended by (having successfully dodged it for 2 & a half years), me finally being afflicted with The 'Rona, which was thoroughly horrid. So that basically added another week, and once I'd recovered sufficiently to be able to perform basic manual tasks (whilst still being a brain-fogged snot factory), it got a gentle and thorough wire-wooling, then that last coat of oil. To my surprise (and mild dismay, considering how long this was taking) the finish on the body wings set to a very varnish-y looking bright gloss, quite different to the expected satin finish on the neck & centre sections. The oil itself was also slightly gummy to the touch, not cured properly hard. However, after various pissings-around & experimenting, I found that, quite counter-intuitively, T-Cutting the shiny bits seemed to remove the top layer & restore the expected satin finish, and also seemed to encourage the stuff to harden off properly. So after a lot of buffing, coughing, sneezing and sniffing, this is where we are: And I think that's a finished finish, apart from removing some little bits of Danish Oil residue from the top & fretboard edges. Then just a couple of little aesthetic jobs to do, and I should be able to start welding & nailing all the bits back on.

Inclined to agree the missing word was probably Maya, simply because they often used that same 'Electric Bass' suffux & most other Japanese brands didn't. However! The bass is the same thing as numerous others made in the mid/late 70s by Chushin Gakki, and sold with a plethora of rebrands. Maya, Grant/Grantson, Columbus, Cimar, CMI, Avon & a whole bunch of others I can't currently prise out of my post-Covid brain-fog. Thinking about it, CMI sometimes used that 'Electric Bass' suffix. Having found that pic, I'm leaning towards it originally being a CMI. Should be a decent bass, body will probably be butcher-block or ply - the big oversprays on the contours indicate it's not solid timber. That bridge, as others have said, is a German-made Schaller 3D - which would cost you about £80 to buy new. Steal for £29, then.

At about 3x what I was going to pay. Excluding postage. That one's getting into leccy bill type money.