Bassassin

NJ Series Innovator, by the looks. Bet he wishes he'd left the paint on... https://reverb.com/item/19531080-b-c-rich-nj-series-innovator-1989-red

That's gorgeous. And I don't know why more singlecuts aren't done like that.

That looks incongruously classy!

...and whoever bought it stuck it in the bath until the paint fell off, and then put it on Ebay for £200!

Saw her at Glasgow Garage that year. Got an idea that might have been her first UK gig. The harmonica playing did stick in the memory, for all the wrong reasons - but standout was being absolutely blown away by the playing of a then-unknown drummer called Taylor Hawkins.

Excellent, I think it's the right decision about the finish. From a purely mercenary POV, these things are collectable these days and in the (hopefully) unlikely event you don't get on with it, keeping it original is best. In a way it's a shame to hide the neck-through build under a solid finish, but the white/cream (or whatever it was 40 years ago!) is very much of its era, and I think very unusual on a Yamaki SB40. Will ask a couple of nerds and see what the consensus is. They may want your s/n for research! Also great news about the bridge, hopefully it'll be a drop-in. This style of bridge turned up on a few basses (oddly quite common on mid/late 80s Korean cheapos, but usually with chrome saddles) but if I remember correctly the Yamaki original had allen key intonation screws. Dunno why I remember this stuff... Edit: Just had a close look at the pics & noticed they're not the original tuners. Are they Schallers? The originals would have been Gotoh GB528s: Always a mystery why people swap decent components for stuff that's no better!

Delighted someone on here grabbed that, bit surprised it wasn't @AndyTravis though... Interesting that it's so wide at the nut - my fretted SB40 is dead-on 40mm. However mine was made in a different factory to yours, and there are various other differences. Is that a micro-switch just under the toggle? Would be interesting to know if that's original - mine doesn't have it and neither did Bathiki's. His was from the same factory/period as yours. Yours was made by Yamaki Gakki, and is, I think, spectacularly rare, particularly in that colour. I will have to do a bit of checking but there are some MIJ geeks I know who will probably be quite wildly excited by this bass. Yeah, they are worse than me... You'll probably ignore me but I'd try to put it back to original - it's really only the bridge & knobs that have been swapped. Would've had bog-standard speed knobs, possibly knurled (mine has those), probably gold. The original bridges on Yamaki Washburns looked like this: Basically a BBOT with big brass bogseat saddles. This is available new, although I'm not sure if it's a drop-in replacement, I'd guess probably not. And I really, really, really don't think you should refinish it.

Not either/or. Bass was my first instrument and is still the only thing I'm remotely proficient on, but I started messing around with guitar after a couple of years of just bass. Understanding the instrument definitely made me a better bass player, and made my lines more varied and (imo) creative. Never wanted to be "a guitarist", and I'm absolutely not good enough to get on stage with one - but it's 99% of what I play when composing, and I'm good enough (with enough takes!) to get down what I hear in my head when recording demos. I'm developing a substantial piece of music at the moment, so far entirely using guitar, and have probably played bass for about 15 minutes in total this year! Lots of bass ideas in my head, though.

Annnnd - the Alembic's gone, the other two to follow!

So it does - never noticed that on these before. Interestingly I had an Ibby SR800 fretless with the same subtle dots. Meant I was in tune on the G string, at least...

It's an "I'm not paying fees on a £3400 Alembic" scam! Kind of like that Alembic Spoiler... That or a new bathroom, what d'you think?

That's a Roadster RS940, from 1981. Looks to be in good original condition, apart from the inexplicably changed knobs. Pretty uncommon version, I have the same thing with frets (RS924) and it's awesome, if a bit of a back-breaker. Will be watching, but not bidding, I need cheat lines on a fretless!

In a world where this exists, never assume anything... (I know we're not supposed to, but I was genuinely in stitches over that. The defret. The tuners. The position dots. Oh god, the position dots... I'm starting to think he deserves some kind of award... )

Great to see MDP upping his game!

Blimey, this has moved on! Interesting to see the neck stamps & the 69 being a date is persuasive up to a point, considering the era of the bass. However, I mentioned having had a few Taiwanese Kays, and I do still have the Strat copy, in bits. It's a K-32, and these are cosmetically accurate copies. The heel stamp's just about legible, where it matters: So, 67, or at a push 87 or G7. Either way, it's not a date. In 1967 absolutely nothing that looked as much like a Strat as this was made outside of Fullerton, and by '87 Kay had pretty much disappeared, manfacture having moved from Taiwan to Cort in Korea in the mid/late 70s. Regarding the neck construction, it's definitely ply (or strip mahogany, as the more sniffy MIJ geeks insist) and apart from the K-30 LP copy, all the Taiwanese Kays I've seen have this neck construction. This was a common build technique on 60s MIJ guitars, as much because it was cheap, as because it was stiffer & more resistant to warping than the poorly-seasoned woods used on earlier guitars. It was probably adopted in the Taiwanese factory for the same reason. Interesting that a lot of mahogany's used in these Kays - the Strat, P and LP copies all have solid pancake mahogany bodies, I assume because it's what was locally available.

What was it? I've had a couple of Kay Ps and a Strat, can't remember which it was but one of those had 1969 on the heel. It wasn't a date, the simple fact being that no-one was making remotely accurate Fender copies that early, certainly not a Taiwanese Teisco subsidiary. The pickups, for example, simply didn't exist. The number's more likely to be something like a production line reference or model code.

£1k? I'd chew my leg off (and probably yours too) to pick up a Kawai Alembic clone for £565! Never, ever seen a solid colour one before, price is somewhat OTT but this is probably pushing a grand's worth. When did you last see one, and how much would you pay for a genuine early 80s Alembic?

I don't know if anyone's ever bothered to work out whether these can be dated from the serial! Agree with @hooky_lowdown, it's early 70s but beyond that it's hard to be specific. Bit of interesting (to some!) info is that these Taiwanese Kays are sort-of Teiscos. Kawai/Teisco acquired a factory in Taiwan in the mid 60s for production of their lower-end instruments and that's where these were made, Kay having been one of various rebrands 60s MIJ Teiscos were sold under. Some MIJ Teiscos & MIT Kays were the analogous but I don't think there was a Teisco version of your bass.

Never had one, but some of the older Encores are apparently pretty decent. I understand some were the same as Fender's Sunn Mustang range, made in India. Never had a Sunn bass but have had 3 FMIC Sunn Strats, generaly the necks are very good, bodies good quality but hardware is where the corners were cut. Might be the same with this, gold or not!

I recently got a pair of these for my very long-term SB Elite B&G resto (in many ways in worse condition than yours!) and they are excellent quality and look the part. I'd recommend grabbing these rather than fruitlessly searching for years for originals, like wot I did. Replacement pickups, if necessary, are available from Rautia and Dan Armstrong, as far as I know the Rautia versions are exact reproductions, that's what I'll be sticking in mine.

Think I've seen this, or something similar before. I wonder what possesses someone to wake up one morning with the thought, "today, I'm going to make something pointless, horrible and rubbish. And then try to sell it". Makes me think of this tw@t: I'm not a remotely violent person, but I'd happily take that and beat him over his idiot head with it until he stopped.

Seen her with Old Vince a couple of times, she's a fine player. For reasons of authenticity, not a patch on Michael Bruce or Glen Buxton though.

In my experience, too little break angle can cause open strings to vibrate in the nut - remember a fretted string has pressure holding it down. On one bass, the A has an audible overtone when played open, which turned out to be the string vibrating on the other side of the nut.

Always cut to length. Measure enough for 3 turns around the post (exact length depends on the size of the post) bend 90 degrees & cut, leaving about 15mm to insert into the post. Never, in 40-odd years of string changing have I experienced unravelling windings. Never used Newtone & probably won't, if they're fussily made and would necessitate a mess of unused string either wrapped around the post or waving around & jabbing the guitarist in the eye.