Bassassin

Actually, early 70s, he probably did. Was probably a JB after all!

That's probably this very one, then! Also have an idea that Jim Lea played a shortscale Faker made by JayDee, although that was probably a one-off. John Birch's Fakers were enough of an irritant & an infringement that they got a C&D off Big Johnny Hall, back when Big Johnny Hall was stomping around chucking out legal threats left right & centre. Also, I seem to remember the Rick type actually having 4001 as its catalogue model number! I think they deserve to be on the list. Unfortunately I'm far too mentally disorganised to write a book about MIJ basses - there are several reasons, the main one being there's not enough definitive info to fill more than a short pamphlet, and half of that will have been revised by the time it got to print. I am also a sufficiently undisciplined writer that I fear there would be a tendency to veer away from a detailed comparison of typical through-neck constructions across three separate manufacturers, into a twisted hellscape of eldritch horror pornography where the shrieks of the damned and doomed echo across an apocalptic wasteland of blackened, creeping, undead flesh, beneath a leaden, burning sky as a baleful and bloody moon rises. Although that might serve to broaden any potential readership demographic. And yes, @WHUFC BASS - they are pretty rare. I've had one for nearly 20 years & I think I've only seen 2 or 3 (including yours) come up since. I do need to get some new pics of it.

Custom's a weird one - first time I saw one was a 70s LP Special copy which turned up in Edinburgh, maybe 15 years ago. After doing a lot of digging, they mostly seemed to be in Holland, Germany - or here in Central Scotland, although mostly in Holland. I post on a number of MIJ-related FB groups (no surprise!) and someone fairly recently connected Custom to a particular retailer in the Netherlands. Hopefully I have a note somewhere, if not I may have to trawl through several years worth of posts! I think the Scottish connection may well have been Grant Music in Glasgow & Edinburgh, run by the highly entrepreneurial Jimmy Grant in the 70s & 80s - they had their own Grant & Grantson brands, which had full UK distribution, and imported/distributed various instruments. So I wonder if Grants may have re-imported surplus Custom instruments from the brand's owners, or something like that. Gerritsen/Gerrinez came up years ago on the old Ibanez Collectors World forum - seems they weren't Fujigen, or anything like Ibanez quality - according to Dutch posters, the name was just an attempt to make an association. The same thing happened with brands like 'Isonez' & 'IBZ' - both nothing to do with Ibanez!

J'arrive! Eventually... And you'd be 100% correct! And you'd be 100% incorrect! Well - maybe 75%. Several brands you mention did source at least some of their instruments from Matsumoku - but the OP's bass isn't one of them. That one's a Kasuga EB-750, made by Kasuga Gakki in 1975-ish, at their own factory in Nagoya city. Of the other brands, Ibanez was made exclusively by Fujigen Gakki, Custom (a local brand from the Netherlands) sold through-neck Fakers made by Matsumoku, and *possibly* Yamaki Gakki. I've not seen a Pearl-branded Faker but the sub-brand Vorg By Pearl sourced their bolt-neck Rick copies from Matsumoku. Aria & Aria Pro II all came from Mats, and the Aspen in the pic has Grover copy tuners, which only appear on Matsumoku Fakers. Just to bang on a bit more, aside from the factories mentioned, both Chushin Gakki & Kiso Suzuki made their own versions, and it looks highly probable that the 70s manufacturers' co-op Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai may have had both through & bolt-neck examples. On top of that, there are a slew of MIJ Rick copies that don't come from any of the aforementioned sources (there are always detail differences) so must have come from Moridaira, Kawai Gakki, Terada Gakki, Iida Gakki, Daina and so on and so on. And that's without taking into account 70s & 80s Fakers from Korea, Italy, Brazil, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and even right here in the U of K!

Exactly that. At first glance I thought it was a luthier build, but those old MIJ Gotoh tuners give it away. Reshaped headstock, & look closely enough & you can see where the original 3-point bridge mount holes have been filled.

There were some 90s MIJ Squiers (Silver Series?)- so I expect if the serial checks out & it's labelled as MIJ it's genuine. These don't go for as much as 80s E & A serial basses (never mind JVs or SQs) but they're well-regarded. I might be MIJ-biased, but aesthetically I'd definitely go for the Squier - black & black pickguard is the best look for a P.

Does it sound anything like a Rick? Looks like, with the limited space that 24 fret neck allows, pickup positioning's closer to a Jazz than a Rick.

No personal experience but yes, Fernandes Fender types from the late 70s/early 80s were probably made by Tokai Gakki in Hamamatsu. Fwiw these aren't 'lawsuit' instruments - that's a term only really applicable (and even then, there's some debate) to Ibanez-branded Gibson copies which pre-date the 1976 headstock redesign.

Turn off your watch history, it won't drench you with anything. You'll just get a blank screen & a fairly unobtrusive but slightly naggy prompt to turn your history back on so it can spam you with more borderline porn. Which you can easily ignore, or scream "F*** YOU YOUTUBE, YOU'RE NOT MY MUM!!!" at, depending on your mood.

Don't think I've heard of Baiful before, maybe if you know, you know. Looks to me to be aesthetically inspired by the highly collectable 50s/60s Wandre basses & guitars, has similar weird/wonky proportions. Must be an Italian thing.

Craftsmaship notwithstanding, those are some shockingly ugly basses.

Delighted to hear it! 😎

Looks a lot like the Schaller 460 I flogged to, err, someone on here a year or so ago! Additionally, that looks a lot like a DiMarzio Model P bodged into a curious position. That's easily worth £75 just for the parts. Shame it's sold!

I can tell you this is from a very short-lived range of SB-ish reissues from the '00s, Korean-made, and that whenever one comes up, there's never a precise ID. Looks like even Aria have forgotten what they are, as there are no catalogues featuring this exact model. Closest I can find is a 2005 SB40A - bolt neck, active, although pickups & hardware are different. And for a moment there, I thought I was having some sort of weird flashback. Which turned out to be correct... Anyway - if it's cheap, I'd buy it if I was you.

Thanks for that, that's much clearer. Yes, pretty much the same thing (the heel may be slightly more square) so no need to update my earlier assessment - 70s/80s Korean cheapo. It won't be a great bass but might be a fun project, so don't pay much, maybe €50-60 or so.

The 3 good pics are a 70s or 80s budget Korean-made Jazz copy. Hard to be certain with the ashtray concealing the bridge position, but I think it's shortscale. It's not Japanese & absolutely not Matsumoku, the MIK giveaways are the mahogany neck, the blank neckplate with screw indents, the domed-looking string tree & what look like pressed tin tuners. The body will be veneered ply - the massive black oversprays on the contours are to hide the laminations. The pic that you say is from the listing is too dark & indistinct to be identifiable as anything other than a Jazz copy. It's similar but hard to say that it's identical. A link to the actual listing would be helpful.

By the same token, the very act of using a VPN to cover your tracks would be inherently suspicious. If you've got nothing to hide, etc...

Nah, that was me expressing amazement that no-one in government's ever proposed it, to my knowledge. It's actually surprising from the perspective that it's exactly the sort of thing the tabloid redtops would love and trumpet about for weeks, regardless of the reality that it couldn't/wouldn't happen. I do think there's a genuine possibility that our politicians don't know what VPNs are or understand them enough to have thought of it, and the Moral Panic points they would score. Never mind TOR!

Why would a VPN provider based outside of the UK (as I expect most are) be interested in, never mind compliant with local restrictions?

All the time VPN providers make a big selling point of keeping no records of user traffic & never, ever making any records they do hold available to external scrutiny (which may or may not be true!) then that seems improbable. If the service VPN providers offered was restricted by local legislation to being functionally identical to an ISP, it'd be much the same as outlawing them & hard to see why anyone would use one. Absolutely. Because our elected representatives are entirely committed to the principle of level-playing-field fairness, and have never so much as heard the expression 'one rule for us, and another for you'.

I've spent the last 10+ years frankly amazed that some hysterical MP hasn't proposed outlawing VPNs. I guess they still haven't heard of them.

I'd assume the fact that a lot of different manufacturers were condensed into a small geographical area in Matsumoto city made this easier - I'd assume Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai had premises for component stock & instrument assembly. As usual with old MIJ guitars there are very few records - hopefully more info will come to light about how it operated & what manufacturers were involved. Matsumoto Gakki is credited on literature from distributor Kyowa Shokai for their Fresher & Camel brands, but much of what's known is word-of-mouth from people who worked in the industry at the time. The most comprehensive explanation was posted on one of the FB vintage MIJ groups a little while ago: Apologies for assuming anyone (other than me!) might be interested in this!

It's a generic budget-end 70s P copy - I suppose the name's uncommon & that might constitute 'rare'. It's thought that a lot of these identikit instruments came from an organisation called Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai, or the Matsumoto Manufacturers Association. This was a collaborative group of manufacturers supplying various components - necks, bodies, hardware, electronics - through an order-book system, to be assembled & branded up to order.

£1415.84 now, apparently! https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1977-to-present-value?amount=220&year2=2024&frequency=yearly

Got to be deliberate, Shirley? I still have fond memories of the 'Squizz' from a few years back. That was almost understandable.