Bassassin

No mention of the J&D Mini Jazz? There's a J&D Mini Jazz! Wonder how these stack up against the 4x more expensive Sire shorties?

Don't see me going back to it. Odd to say that and not really feel much emotionally one way or another - but these have been the strangest of times and will probably change a lot of us, maybe more than we realise at this point. In fairness I've not gigged properly for a good few years. My band played originals & we struggled to replace our drummer when he left about 6 years ago, & shortly after, a house-move meant we had to give up our basement practice & recording space. Lockdown meant the end to speculative rehearsal room get-togethers (where we usually just ended up playing sh!t versions of Rush tunes anyway!) and I totally don't miss it. I've probably picked up the bass maybe 4 times during the course of the last 3 or 4 months. Have been playing guitar a lot, and putting together some musical ideas, mostly in my head. There's probably no interest in, never mind a market for a 35-40 minute concept piece based on a science fiction novella from the late 60s, but given time, one might be created.

It won't stay anything like that cheap. I think the Thunder II & III originally just denoted whether it was fitted with P/P or P/J pickups, but both basses had various different specs & pickup arrangements during the life of the range. Always had a bit of GAS for one of these!

Lemmy had numerous different Ricks, including a couple thought to be copies. He also played a Hoyer 8-string, and endorsed Minarik's idiotic fire-shaped bass. And in a moment of exquisite good taste, this happened: What I was going to say - Ibanez RS824 Roadster: And also Yammy BBs if I remember correctly. And later in his career: Ibby RS900 Roadster, shame he ruined it by slapping that ugly P-shaped mirror on it!

I think these are gorgeous, utterly unique-looking basses, and am faintly disturbed by the fact that, having spent so little during lockdown, I could probably afford to buy the Edinburgh one (I expect it's still there) without losing too much sleep. No. Not a collector, and I'm surrounded already by basses I don't have occasion to play. And besides, I want a red one now...

You lot are rubbish at this detectivising, ain't you? About 5 mins Google image searching led me to these three close relatives: https://www.catawiki.com/l/33602959-silent-traveller-basgitaar-sandelwood-silent-bas-travel-bass-guitar https://www.catawiki.com/l/36392703-silent-traveller-basgitaar-sandelwood-silent-bas-travel-bass-guitar https://reverb.com/item/31935151-cherrystone-silent-traveller-4-string-electric-bass-black#full None of them identical, either to each other or to @Woodinblack's example, but all of them clearly related & variations on the same design. Examining the pics supports my hunch that these are the finest of weirdo Chinese oddities, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if a deep dig through the deepest abysses of AliExpress unearthed similar things. Although possibly with acrylic LED illuminated bodies, so they can see in the stygian dark down there.

Link's going to some boring red Precision. That's weird.

Bear in mind the existing tuners are torque-adjustable - if they're slipping, the collar under the key can be tightened to prevent this.

Thanks for the pics, the tuners & MIJ neckplate suggest it's from the same place as the basses in the other thread. I don't think these basses were made by Fujigen. There are several reasons but primarily it's because of the neckplate style - Fgn did use these plates up to the end of 1975, which is probably why many people assume they're the manufacturer. However at that point they introduced a serial system, which appears to be factory-specific rather than customer related, in that it appears on Fgn products with a variety of different brands. These basses, and many of the related instruments, are indisputably late 70s/early 80s, and there's documented evidence of that for many of them. So, no s/n means they're not Fujigen. The same neckplates appear on instruments from other factories (Kasuga Gakki & Moridaira both used them occasionally) which pretty much establishes they're a generic part from a 3rd party hardware manufacturer. Would I be right if I guessed the bridge is chrome steel, but has brass saddles?

No, certainly not the same, but shares common features which are unusual, and IMO points to the same manufacturer. If you read through the thread - and my posts in particular - I talk about the 3-screw tuners, the brands/models they appear on, and the variations that exist. Also gives (I hope) a bit of an overview of what's established, what's assumed and what's still a mystery at this particular stage of the ongoing research into the 60s-80s Japanese guitar boom. Sorry if what I said was misleading! Could you post some pics of your bass to confirm whether it's from this era? Later basses won't have identifiers like the 3-screw tuners or lower-half MIJ stamped neckplate.

They are - bought a pair for a project SB Elite B&G and they're spot-on, indistinguishable from the real things. They are plastic (early originals are metal, later ones plastic) but they are excellent reproductions.

They're not really common enough for me to have anything specific to contribute - tbh I don't know if it's even 100% confirmed that they are MIJ! However there are often a few tells with MIJ stuff which can sometimes give pointers to date & factory of origin. Clear pics of hardware & any serials or other numbers on headstock/neckplate. Pickups & electronics might give a clue or two. No guarantees but it'd be interesting to get a look at this stuff. Update - just did a bit of random Googling and found an MIJ-stamped Profile P & a Strat. This is both enlightening and a bit frustrating, because the features would make them part of a mystery which is being investigated here: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/435147-does-anybody-know-what-bass-this-is/ If the Profile has the same plate & tuners, I'm confident it's from the same source.

Same seller has this curiosity in their sold listings: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Custom-build-passive-bass-guitar-rickenbacker-pickups-/164246352773 In the event those were genuine Rick HiGains stuck in there, those would cover 2/3 of the asking price. Apropos of whatever, I'm really tempted by that fan-fret, it looks stunning.

My Cimar's an XR series 2065, according to this 1979-ish catalogue: I've only ever seen a couple of others, they do seem pretty scarce. Mine's ever-so-slightly modded by necessity - when I got it, it had been sprayed black & fitted with a white P-bass pickguard. Replaced the guard with a tort to make it closer to original, but if you look closely you can see the stock guard's a slightly different shape with sharper corner angles. Wired mine V/T V/T with stacked pots, as I really don't like selector switches on basses where there's no way of blending pickups. Never saw it as being too similar to the Yam BBs, just struck me as an attempt to get away a bit from the identikit Fender shape - a bit like the Ibanez Blazer, to which these are related. It's also slightly offset, which isn't obvious from my pic, so it's somewhere mid-morph between a P & a J. There's an interesting page from a Geman site about Cimar basses, some good pics comparing the changes & evolutions in design. I've taken the liberty of linking through Google translate, which occasionally leads to the creation of some bizarre new idioms: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guitar-letter.de%2FKnowledge%2FHistory%2FDieGeschichteDesJazzBassBeiCimar.htm Some interesting comparisons with the parallel Ibanez models too, although he curiously omits to mention the Cimar Stinger/Ibanez Blazer paradox - wherein both instruments are exactly the same: I've actually got one of these Mk1 Blazers in bits, body needs a refin. Will do it one day...

Definitely - the more shoulders to the wheel the better! Parts are a can of worms, fortunately for the moment it's a pretty small can, I think for the 70s/80s era stuff we can point to maybe 3 manufacturers & that's it. Top of the heap is Gotoh, because they're still around & still manufacture a lot of the same stuff, they're fairly easy to ID. Chushin was known as a hardware manufacturer before they were recognised as the large-scale manufacturer they were, mostly because bridges on some MIJ Washburn basses have a big Chushin logo underneath. That was, of course before it was appreciated they actually made the whole thing - which of course gives rise to speculation that the parts were made for them, not by them. Third is Shinetsu Byora, apparently still trading although I can't find anything beyond fairly vague business lists for Nagano prefecture. I'd say it's probable, since the Japanese guitar industry these days is small & largely high-end, that if they are still around, they're more likely to manufacture general metal hardware rather than specific musical instrument parts. Like I said, can of worms - if you can find any other parts manufacturers, then I'm sure legendary status within the MIJ community awaits! Just had a thought since this thread's gone off on various tangents, should I start a general "Who made my MIJ bass?" thread? Might be fun. Or start a fight. Or both...

That's a mess. £100 off or GTFO.

This is my favourite non-Jazz Jazz derivative. A touch marmite, possibly. If you're new to these, Yamaha SBV500 from about 2000, a reissue of the '60s SB "Flying Samurai" basses. Sounds like a Jazz on steroids, neck has J proportions and it balances a lot better than you'd expect on the strap. Not exactly for the shy & retiring though.

Ran out of paint & had to resort to chalk for the stripe. Happens to everyone.

I've no idea whether they ever sourced from Matsumoku, but we can see from the details that these basses are not Matsumoku products. It is incorrect to suggest they were made by Hoshino, as these are mid/late 70s basses, and Hoshino's Tama factory only made guitars for a short period in the mid 1960s. (I should point out that all of the "copy era" instruments are 1970s. There were no accurate Japanese copies of American instruments made in the 60s wth the exception of the very first Les Paul clone, which sneaked onto the market in 1969. Difficult to be clear about dates but Fujigen & Matsumoku LP copies first appear in 1971 catalogues, along with Strats, Teles, Precisions, SGs, Jazz basses etc - so it's realistic to pin the start of mass manufacture to 1970.) However, the Mataos may well have been sourced via Hoshino, acting as a distributor for whichever factory manufactured them, I think that's a reasonably possible hypothesis. Ta for the additional pics, I think it's quite likely both of those basses are from the same factory again. The black Precision is sort-of what I'd expect from a post '76 export bass; accurate copy bar the headstock - which is exactly what you find with Cimars & CSLs from 1980-ish. This is my 1980 CSL Jazz copy: It's not particularly original - I've pimped it a bit but originally it had a standard bridge, round-end pickups like yours & a 3-pot control plate. It also has the same 3-screw, cast-body, torque-adjustable tuners - and I'm sure it's from the same mystery factory as all of these others. Basses identical to mine were also sold branded Cimar. I also have this, which is a Cimar. It has the same headstock, tuners and heel-adust truss rod as my Jazz: Both of these basses have a lower-half stamped neckplate, like yours & all the others. Yours only differs in having a serial which I think was hand-stamped post-manufacture. The hardware's interesting but represents another gap in the hive-mind knowledge thus far - if we knew who made some of the parts, it might be easier to tie things together. It's (unfortunately) no help at all, but part of the intrigue, that these 3-screw tuners are a variation of the units fitted to 70s & 80s Yamahas, which are identical (and interchangeable) apart from the style of the key: And that headstock shape looks a bit familiar... Really that's probably a coincidence, but the confusion here isn't mitigated by knowing that Yamaha outsourced manufacture to a variety of factories, and not knowing which factories those were. So in short, my thoughts are as follows: Mataos come from the same factory as your Diamond (but not necessarily other Diamonds) and the similarities between them and Cimar/CSL suggests those too are from the same factory and since Cimar & CSL are brands known to be connected to Hoshino then there's a circumstantial possibility that Matao was also sourced via Hoshino in their role as distributor which is a role we know they undertook because UK importer J.T. Coppock Ltd sourced their Antoria guitars (which were functionally identical to Ibanez) via Hoshino and those were sold alongside the identical Ibanez instruments at a significantly lower price point which we know through the personal testimony of sales reps at the time who used the same demo instruments to sell two different brands to two separate dealer networks and, and, and... Hope that's clear! Congratulations! That concludes Phase 1 module 46.3(b) of your induction into the Vintage Japanese Guitar Community. Your badge will be in the post, pending submission of the correct remuneration and completion of a short (92 page) written test.

@adrihongkong - no problem, all that stuff is imprinted on my brain and as I might have mentioned I have an aptitude for long-windedness. With no work to do at the moment I can happily just sit and ramble/rant! Any connection with Matao would be based upon instruments being sourced from the same manufacturer, rather than the brand itself - as the info points out, Matao was a name owned by Music West, which appears to be a chain of US music shops. This reflects the nature of the vast majority of names you find on headstocks, which is why they don't often give much information about the instruments themselves. Importers will tend to go for the best deal available, so actual manufacturers can regularly change on that basis. Interesting that Hoshino is mentioned but they are a trading company, not a guitar manufacturer. In addition to Ibanez & Cimar, Hoshino owns the Tama brand, and the factory which produces Tama drums. For a short period in the 60s, they did manufacture guitars there but that stopped in the mid-60s, and subsequently they contracted out to other factories, notably Fujigen Gakki for Ibanez in the 70s & 80s. It's possible - maybe probable - that Matao was imported via Hoshino, but unfortunately it's the same dead-end regarding actual manufacturer as Cimar & CSL, both of which are Hoshino-related. Interesting to see a bass with the same headstock as yours, are there any pics of the rest of the bass?

It's a mess, and it's also not an AFR. That's an EDA905, the plastic-bodied semi-reissue of the AFR from about 15 years ago. Nice enough basses, but they go for about £300 when they dont have muck all over them.

PW is my favourite Rush album so I'm considering it. Not really fanboy enough, though - there's no new/unreleased material here & I don't know if it's worth it just for the live stuff, of which there's already a fair amount from that era around. I probably wasn't alone in hoping that someone might have unearthed some long-lost demos for Sir Gawain & The Green Knight, the aborted concept piece that much of Permanent Waves originated from!