Bassassin

Had one the same: Overall similar to the Columbuses & Grants of the era but clearly not the same manufacturer, despite sharing a lot of identical hardware.

Again - that tells us who it's not, rather than who it is. Fujigen seem never to have used this style, Ibanez, Antoria, Greco etc J copies have conventional square-ended units. On their various Jazz copies, Matsumoku used a few distinct styles unique to them as well as standard types. The only Mats I remember seeing these on are some permutations of Westone Thunder II & IIIs. Don't think I've seen round-ends on Kasuga, Yamaki or Tokai either, but there's so much indeterminate stuff it's hard to be sure. Manufacturers who did use these include Chushin & Moridaira, they also appear on Yamahas but they contracted out to various other manufacturers and as far as I know there's no record of who built what. Me, usually. Which is how I know that style of pickup was used on plenty of Korean basses in the mid/late 70s. Actually, interesting you mention Cimar & CSL, the two brands are related. Cimar was owned by Ibanez owner Hoshino, CSL was house-brand of UK Ibanez importer Summerfields. CSLs were usually re-brands of Cimars, sourced through the distribution deal with Hoshino. I think the OP's bass is from the same factory as Cimar/CSL (too many common details for coincidence, knowing what I do) I just don't know who the manufacturer was, yet. While I have specific reservations, Chushin Gakki's a strong possibility, and that's what I expect he'd be told if he were to do the rounds of the various MIJ FB groups. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't like to be told their instrument's not what they want it to be, it seems.

There's probably a dozen. But we couldn't talk about old 1960s 6-string guitars we've owned there, could we?

I think it's a later version of the same bass as yours, from the same factory. The colouring is interesting, but to me looks like a new instrument or one that's not been exposed to light, the neck & body being a naturally more yellow colour than the fretboard. hardware looks brand-new too.

Years ago I had an old Columbus Jazz copy which had a massive Cargo Studios sticker right across the back. Did a bit of digging and found a record of a Columbus J on an ancient gear manifest from the studio - which was for a time co-owned by Peter Hook. So I like to entertain the idea that Hooky might have had the occasional play on my old Columbus. Tenuous, I admit.

Just watched that half an hour ago. Lovely piece of work!

Longest-owned instrument is a Columbus SG copy which I bought used in 1980 - my first guitar. I'd been playing bass for two years when I got this: Nice, playable slightly better than budget quality Japanese guitar which I learned a lot with. That one's not mine - These are guitars with very slender necks & no volute, and bad things can happen when headstocks hit walls. This is mine...

I had a Rapier 33, picked it up at a local car boot along with a ruined Kay Strat copy, think I paid £12 for the both. The Rapier was a really cool & interesting old guitar, played not bad after a bit of work. Lots of curious details - set neck, no truss rod, and fitted with switches from a Morphy-Richards hairdryer. Can't remember the specifics now but the trem impressed me with its simplicity & compactness. Odd finish, almost like it had been plastic-coated, unfortunately quite badly cracked. Mine dated to '62 as far as I could work out - which, if I got it right, made it the only YOB instrument I've ever owned. Seems they were real garden-shed jobs back in the early days, hand-wound pickups & whatever components could be put to use - hence the switches, I guess. That's one I sort of wish I'd hung onto, doubt I'll run into another.

I've shimmed necks on BBOT-equipped basses to avoid huge, spiky lengths of saddle height screw sticking out & trying to lacerate my hand! Particularly lethal for pick players whilst palm-muting. Never had to do this with a cast bridge, as far as I recall.

Thanks for the pics @adrihongkong - good to see a few more details. These definitely help establish who didn't build rather than who did, but there are a few intriguing details too. I am struck again by the fact this looks so factory-fresh, I've never seen a 40+ year-old bass before with no tarnishing & discolouration of the metalwork, or ageing of the wood (particularly the neck) no matter how well looked after it's been. OK, I don't think it's anything to do with Aria. Aria Diamond was a distinct sub-brand with an unambiguous logo, here's a late 70s decal: So anyway, I think this is a different Diamond, and could be related to this one that came up last year, which I think is a Tokai build: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/389192-diamond-bass-made-in-japan/ I spraffed about that one at some length on that thread so won't repeat myself too much! The problem with positive IDs of random 70s MIJ basses is that there are distinct ID characteristics for just a handful of manufacturers, but in the industry's heyday there were dozens, if not hundreds of companies, from huge mass-production factories to backstreet workshops turning them out. And there's this issue, what with them being copies, that they do all tend to look similar... There are some details about the bass & similarities to other instruments that make me think it's from the same manucaturer as those other instruments - but that's not a whole lot of help when I don't know who the manufacturer was. It is, I think, from the maker responsible for Cimar & UK brand CSL. I would say it's the same as the Cimar model 1908ASH in this mid 70s catalogue: A few differences, notably the tuners, headstock and neck heel. These basses have round-ended J pickups & a 2-saddle bridge under the covers, I would say the Diamond is a later version of that bass. Worth noting that late 70s Cimars were fitted with the same 3-screw torque-adjustable tuners fitted to the Diamond. The problem is that it's not known who made these Cimars. Cimar was distributed by, and subsequently owned by Hoshino Gakki, owner of the Ibanez brand, but the copy-era guitars at least, were not made by the factory which made Ibanez. A lot of the dead-ends in this research often lead to an organisation known as the Matsumoto Manufacturers Union or Association, which seemingly came into being to make smaller businesses more competitive against the bigger players at the time. This is worth a read if anyone's interested: Anyway, given myself a headache (real, not metaphorical!) trying to get my head around this & get it into some sort of order. I'm off for a lie down.

I'm sure I remember someone on here, must've been 5+ years ago, did an A/B with a BBOT & a BA2 - same bass, same strings etc, and the consensus from the clips was that the BBOT sounded marginally better. Hope I'm not hallucinating that. I like hi-mass bridges largely because they look better, I'm hard pushed to hear any difference at all. I do have a few basses with Schaller 3Ds, being able to adjust string spacing, mostly for accuracy over pickup poles, can be a benefit.

I think in real, quantifiable terms, some people think they look better.

That's really quite interesting. On first glance I'd say it's probably 70s Japanese - although some of the better Korean instruments from that era can be hard to distinguish from MIJ. I don't think it's the same bass as the Matsumoku-built Arias, although there was an Aria Diamond sub-brand. Instruments branded just "Diamond" occur quite regularly in various different territories and it's not clear if all, or in fact any, are connected to Aria. It's probable several unconnected distributors used the Diamond name. What's most unusual about this bass is the headstock shape - almost all 70s MIJ Fender copies used the standard Fender style. Some (including Aria) changed the head shape from around 1977, after Gibson's threatened litigation against Ibanez over their use of the Gibson head style (the so-called "lawsuit") but this isn't a style used by Aria. For me, that's particularly interesting on a Fender type bass which has the large chrome truss cover seen here. On early 70s instruments, several Japanese factories used these, including Fujigen, Matsumoku and Chushin. All phased these out by around 1972, apart from Chushin who continued their use on budget Fender copies throughout the 1970s. I've been interested in these old guitars & basses for a long time and this one is the first I've ever seen to combine that early truss cover style with a non-Fender headstock. The headstock points to late 70s, as does the position of the thumbrest - earlier instruments have it fitted below the strings as a tug-bar, as the late 60s/early 70s Fenders would have. There may be some clues to its origin in some of the bits you haven't shown, so if possible pics of the neckplate, tuner backs, pickups & bridge might be useful. Neckplates can sometimes identify a specific manufacturer, or at least, narrow down who didn't make it. Finally - it really looks in exceptional condition, pretty much unplayed to my eyes. Very unusual to see something like this where the neck lacquer hasn't yellowed significantly. Looks like it's been in a box for 40 years!

Wasn't what I was expecting the first post to be! It's exactly like mine! Which is currently looking for a new home, me having got a Yamaha SG1500 which pretty much does the same job. I regret selling everything a little bit, but I probably feel worse about holding onto instruments I just don't play any more. The Westy's been in its case for about 18 months now, will definitely miss it when it's gone.

Way too much for a bass with an unadjustably dodgy neck. Maybe worth the £60 I didn't pay for one!

If you're interested (and I understand if you're not!) there's another one here, better quality pics from different angles - genuinely hard to see any differences from mine, including the neck/body joint position: https://www.richtonemusic.co.uk/product/tokai-breezysound-thinline-telecaster-butterscotch-w-hard-case-2nd-hand-ytokai88700/ The scratchplate is interesting - when I first got Tele GAS I spotted a lovely SX Thinline someone had up on Ebay for about £100, natural finish with a pearl scratchplate. Missed out on that, and weighed up a new SX (£200) against the J&D, which was £113 but with a tort plate that I wasn't too keen on. Anyway, I put the detail aside & pulled the trigger, thinking I could pick up a pearl plate later for a few quid. Having got the guitar & looked into it, it turns out the proportions are quite different from a standard Fender fit plate - and the screw position & count is also different. The Fender plate (and the SX copy) have 4 screws along the top, between the front of the bridge/pickup surround & the neck pocket. The J&D - and the Tokai - both only have 3. Combine that with the very yellowy butterscotch finish, identical detailing and near-identical hardware, and to me they do look too similar for coincidence. My "thing" is old 70s/80s Japanese guitars, often Fender & Gibson copies & I'm aware how Japanese factories made generic instruments for various overseas importers/distributors, sometimes with slight variations but usually identical, and those instruments were sold with different names and often with vastly different prices. I have every expectation modern Chinese factories are just the same & I'm pretty confident the J&D Teles come from the same factory, if not the same production line, as the Tokai. Hope you'll excuse my banging on like this, but I do find this sort of thing unhealthily interesting! I suppose it only matters because the same guitar (if it is) being sold for 3x more makes the J&D seem even more of a bargain!

Genuinely curious - what differences are you seeing other than the headstock shape? The only thing I can see is that the neck might be set a couple of mm further back on mine, when you line up the 17th fret with the neck/body junction. Anyway, really amazed by how good a guitar it is for so little money - I bought it expecting it'd be a bit bit shoddy & I might have to do some work to make it play properly, but it really needs nothing. Even the shop setup was spot-on, the only thing I had to do was tweak pickup heights to balance their outputs. I might well have just got lucky & landed a good one but I'm tempted by some of the other J&Ds now. Got my eye on their shortscale Jazz, might be fun & a fraction of the price of the new Sire shorty.

It's an LBX60 - this is an '85/6 catalogue: A few years ago one of these came up on the local Gumtree for buttons, I think £60 or so. Me & another local BC member spent too long coming to a gentleman's agreement over who should go for it, and we both missed out!

Bizarrely enough, that's why I ended up with Tele GAS. Couldn't really get into the album (a massive step back/down from Hand Cannot Erase imo) but loved that big, brash guitar sound.

Late to this thread, otherwise would have very strongly suggested grabbing one of these for £118: J&D Thinline Tele Had one for about 18 months, quality is ridiculous for the money, and I've barely played anything else since I got it. And what's interesting is if you dig around, what looks like exactly the same guitar only with a Fender headstock & vintage style tuners can be had for 3x the price. That extra 200 quid buys you a Tokai sticker.

Exactly what I thought. I really, really like it but I'd have to buy this neck for it.

Hardly a Fender expert but I know a little about the MIJs & CIJs. Not seeing anything at all here that points to Japan.

That's an Aria 1720, from around 1970 - '72 or so, and looks, apart from the missing bridge cover, to be in original & unmolested condition. http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/catalogs/e70s_aria/e70s_aria_cat.html I'd be inclined to leave it as is, just give it a stripdown & thorough clean up - looks like there's very little corrosion to the metal parts, and all those knocks and bumps are its history. These are rare instruments these days, and pretty collectable - although not worth a fortune, they aren't without value, and are becoming more sought-after.

There was a radio version with different lyrics - interestingly changed to 'bikini'. I'm absolutely sure they weren't trying to be ambiguous or provocative at all with the original, though! 😄

If it's got original Rick pickups & electronics I'd think it's fairly authentic, the placement's fairly close to where they'd be on a Rick body. Although that in itself is variable as Rickenbacker specs & dimensions have changed over time - in the mid 70s the neck pickup spacing was moved to 1" from the fretboard end from the original 1/2", and also the position of the neck itself changed relative to the body wings (and therefore pickup position) at some point. Compare @prowla's '72 to a modern 4003 - on a current bass the fretboard heel aligns with the lower cutaway, whereas on Paul's bass the 20th fret itself is at that position. And speaking of @prowla's basses, I'd think his Rickenberger might be a good test case for whether it's pickups or pickup position that contribute most to the tone - it's a 24 fret, 34" scale bass & it looks like the pickups are largely occupying the original routes - so if it sounds like a Rick, then it's all about the pickups. Probably!