Bassassin

Ibanez & Univox came from two separate manufacturers, both are easy to ID, and these basses aren't the same as either. Two main differences between the Ibanez you linked (a model 2388B) & the FG bass you're looking at - first the Ibby's a bolt-neck, secondly it has checked binding which the other one doesn't. Ibanez Fakers were made by Fujigen Gakki & there were many design tweaks during the life of the models, (through-neck & bolt) which ran approximately from 1971-1978, but they all featured the same tight-patterned checked binding, which was unique to the Fujigen-made basses. There are other differences but they're hard to point out in the pics you have. There's unfortunately no way of knowing what the original brands were - I presume you're not in the UK, so what's most likely is that they will have originally had had a name used by an importer/distributor local to you. Very few brands on 70s MIJ guitars are anything to do with the manufacturer - and that includes well-known names like Ibanez, Greco or Univox. The basses you're looking at were sold under potentially hundreds of different names worldwide - I've seen them as Shaftesbury, El Maya, JHS, Cimar, CMI, & various others. You mention a lawsuit - this is a massive myth in the history of 1970s Japanese copies, and the truth is no lawsuit ever took place. What happened was that in 1977, Gibson's then parent company Norlin made threats towards the US operation of Ibanez' parent company, Hoshino, regarding the headstock shape of their Gibson copies. No legal action took place as Hoshino had changed the design of their headstocks a year earlier. Absolutely nothing else happened, no-one sued anyone, no other manufacturers were involved - and don't believe anyone who tells you different!

Nothing to do with Ibanez - those have features that make them really easy to ID that neither of these two have. Although that doesn't matter, the MIJ copies are all desirable/collectable & all similarly good quality. Agree with @prowla that the FG is likely from the factory which made Shaftesbury - these are thought to have been made by Chushin Gakki & probably date from the mid 70s. Harder to tell with the black one but if it's through-neck (looks like it has the binding gap so 99.5% it is), I'd be inclined to think it might be the same bass in a different colour - the tuners on that are the type you'd expect to see on the Chushin basses - I'm inclined to think they've been swapped on the FG one. The white stripe is not original - I'll stick my neck out & say no Fakers had that. If there's any chance you could provide clearer/better pics then me & @prowla could probably give you more info - although from what I can tell these both look worth getting hold of, if Rick copies are your thing!

Boggles the mind how someone can attempt to assemble a Fender-style bitsa - possibly the one of the least challenging challenges in the history of challenges - and get absolutely everything quite so cataclysmically wrong. That in itself must be a unique talent.

Forgot all about that one! I had the 4-string T-34 - bought it off someone on BC about 8 or 9 years ago for the exact same reason. Amazing finish but incredibly hard to get a good pic. Never got the chance to gig it but it looked lovely hanging on the wall in direct sunlight! Lost mine in a partial trade for a concrete garage/workshop base when we moved house a couple of years later.

Aria STB-GT, from about 15 years or so ago. Basically a P/J/MM hybrid. Think these were £250/£300-odd new, found mine on Ebay for £100. Absolutely unmarked, but had an issue where the battery drains if not removed, presumably an issue with the jack but I couldn't find the fault & ended up wiring it passive. Should maybe stick a Retrovibe Stinger pre in it one day. They were never particularly common so not many around these days. If I remember there was a 5 string version too.

That's quite eye-catching at first glance. Realistically, you can't help but have some (possibly misplaced) respect for that level of ambition in both the execution and the marketing of a £90 bass with a Dulux refin. Edit - what the actual f*ck is going on with that bridge???

No question the neck's genuine - although that string tree's not original! The only way you'd be able to have much idea about the body would probably be neck pocket fit, and whether the neck's had to have new holes drilled - it's unlikely the originals would line up correctly with a replacement body.

It really doesn't have a single original idea - P shaped body, skinny maple/blocks J neck and Stingray pickup & EQ! Somehow it all works though, it's a lovely thing to play & really doesn't look or feel like the budget bass it is. Yeah. That's what I thought - this was a Crack Converters blag where I thought - a Laurus/Marleaux lookey-likey for £150? How bad can it be? As it turned out, very!

All the time, probably my main criterion for any bass purchase ever. And that's a lot of basses. Couple of examples, one good: And one absolutely bloody awful: The Lottery Of Functionality aspect might well be a factor in the whole thing, but I don't know. I just like shiny stuff.

Closest I came was a pair of 90s Ibby SR800s, fretted & fretless. Both lovely basses I shouldn't have sold.

Certainly is - a slightly later CMI with the logo revised to reflect the cursive 'M' from the Marshall logo. Much as I like my old MIJ copies, that's as close to a piece of low-end junk as they get. I've had similar, if not 100% identical, & if I was flogging that I'd consider myself lucky to get £100 for it. Seller deserves some recognition for possibly the most delusionally ambitious BIN I think I've ever seen!

You might have to modify your own running order - the Rick 4003 dates from 1981, its predecessor the 4001 was first available in 1961, and the original single-pickup 4000 appeared in 1957. The first Ibby SRs appeared in 1987.

Indeed - everyone has influences (it's hardly overstating to say we all learn by copying) but to suggest there's little left but plagiarism, or at best subconscious recycling seems like a massive expression of negative defeatism.

I've noticed a tendency to bin perfectly good torque-adjustable tuners because they were slipping, & the person didn't understand that they were perfectly good torque-adjustable tuners & they could have just adjusted the torque to stop them slipping.

If you're expected to just note-for-note a pre-existing bass part & not have any input of your own, I suppose it amounts to the same thing. Is that all original music, or just that produced by sad little wannabe local artists? 🤔

Originals, by a big margin. The caveat is that for most of the bands I've been in, I've been the main writer/co-writer - so obviously I have an attachment to & belief in the material that probably wouldn't be there if I was just playing bass on someone else's songs. On the other hand I find covers sets hard work - learning & rehearsing them feels like a chore and gigging them rapidly becomes stale and repetitive. I suppose it's only reasonable though - 99.9% of paying gigs I've had have been covers so it's only right it should feel like a job!

AFAIK the Hi Flyer was the same as Aria's Diamond Mosrite wannabe, but with different pickups. Tried one of these reissues years ago, nice bass, like most modern Arias. Wasn't any £600 new!

Far more wrong than right - the body & scratchplate are great designs, but that's where it ends. Aesthetically the bog-standard Fender headstock looks wrong & is lazy, imo a Tele shape would work better, and certainly not that wonky 80s Ibanez-looking thing above. No issues with the pickups, but they need single-coil & passive switching. For me, I'd like a bound maple/pearl blocks (pearl dots at a pinch) neck & a pearl scratchplate. Also a Squier logo & £399 price tag would make the biggest difference.

I'm not quite there yet, then. Fortunately! 😉

Nah, not for that sort of money. If there's ever a £250 Squier version then I might be tempted to mod one & sort the various ugly & pointless details!

I've been playing for 40+ years and in that time have owned basses that by now must number well in to triple figures - likely double that if you consider the guitars I've owned as well. I have never owned a Fender (or a Gibson, for that matter) and the only US-made instrument I've had was a Peavey T40. This is not something I have any motivation to change. I have easily made a far better living from buying cheap s/h guitars & basses, wiping them down & flipping them for way more than I paid than I ever did (or will) from actually playing them. That's despite, for a few years in the 90s, making most of my income from gigging. I can't read either notation or tab, and have only a very vague grasp of any element of musical theory, despite being a fairly prolific and (some have said) competent composer* of various genres of music, latterly predominantly prog rock. *When I say 'composer', I mean I sit around noodling & sometimes a few bits stick in my head for long enough for me to crowbar them together & make what I loosely think of as a 'composition'.

Thinking about it, the possible rationale for something like this would seem right up 'his' street. As a continuation of 'his' acts of creative charity to the tragically fat-fingered guitar players of the world, simply relocating a bass' tuners to the end of the body will clearly provide similar endless convenience and benefit for the shorter-armed bass player. Was that what Ned S was really thinking, all those years ago?

So, someone looked at a Marleaux Contra & went - "I can make that even more foul!" Winner.