Bassassin

Mats have some easy to spot details - slightly translucent pickguard with control position dots, Grover copy tuners, very dark fretboard wood and a small "staple" style bridge pickup, like the OP's bass. Also helps that I've got both a Matsumoku and a Shafty myself!

In fairness, the likes of this will have zero impact on sales of Ritter originals.

Like I said, Matsumokus are easy to ID - and yours isn't one! However that's not bad news. Yours was almost certainly sold branded Shaftesbury, and these really are great basses, and aren't prone to some of the structural issues fairly common to Matsumokus. Apart from the single truss rod and the type of tuners, they're very accurate, and very well made. It's not completely clear who made these but it's probable that it was Chushin Gakki, one of the less well known names, but actually one of the biggest Japanese manufacturers during the 70s & 80s.

Seen these turn up on Ebay a couple of times & they sort of look like they were aiming for something similar to the 80s Roadster/Roadstar 2 ranges mashed up with a bit of ATK. Looks like these were around for a couple of years in the mid '00s when they weren't making ATKs, although it's hard to be sure from the few available catalogue scans. There are some in the '05 blurb: No model number on the Ebay one but it looks closest to the RD900, so a pretty high-spec version. Would think it's probably quite a lot of bass for not too much money, by the looks.

Not sure what's going on with that squared-off neck pocket route either - inclined to think neck & body aren't related. Apart from the colour, the best bit is the machined alloy volume control knob - aficionados and restorers of 60s MIJ guitars would pony up a tenner for that.

They are, aren't they? Assumed when I first saw this they'd be copies but what looks like Grover logos suggest otherwise. If this hadn't had the frets ripped out it'd be worth the asking price for the tuners & MIJ Antoria neck alone. Wish people wouldn't do that.

I expect it's a bit sh!tter than a Ritter. ...Sorry...

Couple of oldies but goodies. First edition Hohner B2A, 1984, owned from new: Cort Space B2 - bought from a BCer about 8 years ago, original black finish was badly worn so I removed it using a heat gun & was pleasantly surprised to find a satin poly sealing coat underneath. Want to pop some different pickups in at some point. And this one's a no-brand Crack Converters special I picked up because I liked the sort of Marleaux/Laurus-y styling, and it was dirt cheap. Unfortunately quite cheaply-made too, despite appearances it's not through-neck, it took a lot of work to make it play nicely and unfortunately the tuning system is over-engineered, poorly thought out and barely fit for pupose. Looks smashin' though, but sadly no use as a wall-hanger because paradoxically, it lacks a head to hang it by. So off it went. Future headless ambitions include a Riverhead Unicorn (had GAS since the 80s when I couldn't afford one), Hohner Jack (the J/J version) Westone Super Headless (when one turns up at the car boot for £30) Status S2/S2000 (see previous entry) - and probably more realistically, a conversion of a sort-of Rickenfaker I've had kicking around for years, which has one of the ugliest & most incongruous headstocks I've seen.

That's a Maton Ibis, ridiculously, insanely rare 60s era Australian-made bass- and I believe I have encountered this particular one before. A long time ago, the band my partner & I were in the process of putting together briefly used a rehearsal space in an old church turned arts centre in Craigmillar, Edinburgh. Would've been 1998/99, according to Karen, who worked just round the corner at the time & had blagged us the room. There was a band finishing up & packing away & I got chatting to the bassist, an Aussie guy, probably in his 60s, about his quite amazing looking white Maton Ibis, which he'd brought with him when he emigrated from Aus to Scotland. Having never seen one in real life either before or since, I'd imagine this is the same bass. It's a real shame the shop's clued up enough these days to know what they're selling (had a few silly bargains there in the past) or I'd be sorely, painfully tempted to give this a home.

Lovely thing & I'm quite appropriately envious. I'm faintly amazed by the fact I've never owned a Westone bass.

Depends - most of the music I've played over the years is my own composition - I find when something's been worked out, learned, rehearsed to death then gigged for a bit it's pretty much locked in. If I don't play it for a while a refresher run-through or two sorts it out, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I have the ability to pick up the parts for covers I'm fairly familiar with quickly, but I don't retain those for long if they don't get played. If I needed to play the same song again say, six months later, I'd have to pretty much start from scratch.

I think one of Peart's reactions to the NME stitch-up was to remark that they must be unique in being the only band in the world with "a Jewish Nazi bass player"! The song Red Sector A, from the Grace Under Pressure album is inspired by Lee's parents' experiences as survivors of a Nazi concentration camp.

Careful - we may wind up in politics-land if we pursue this line of discussion - and we all know what happens then, don't we... But yes - for long-standing Rush fans,the Ayn Rand controversy was something that defined the band - and Peart in particular - in the rabidly hard-left world of the late 70s/early 80s music press. All of which derived from that NME hatchet-job, written at a time when playing prog rock was a contender for the most reviled human behaviour in history. As an apolitical teen, Peart's political-ish allegories inspired me to read & understand a little. I did read Ayn Rand - (2112 was directly based on a novella called Anthem) and found her writing dense, stilted and unrealistic. I read all of her novels and two of her philosophical essays, and my takeaway from it (at age 19 or so) was less that she was pro- what we would call "right-wing" but was rabidly, vehemently anti-collectivist, likely as a consequence of her childhood during the Russian revolution. From the perspective of 35-odd years later, I wonder how differently her work would read now, particularly with me having turned out to be a proper lefty snowflake bedwetter...

Well spotted! Surprised that one extra fret appears to be worth 20,000 yen though! Interesting - not seen that before. Liking the fact it's a Fujigen, and the reverse 2xP, could forgive it being a bolt neck. They get so much right here - and then they go & bung that hideous half-Rick/half Ibby Blazer scratchplate on it...

Show us a pic. Matsumoku Fakers are really easy to ID if you know what to look for.

Off the top of my head, it's Tim Allen at gig.ink who does thse. Or anything you want on a trc.

I suspect it's more like a batch/shipment number than an individual serial. Rose Morris sold three different guitar ranges - Top Twenty, Avon & Shaftesbury, and these all had the same silver stickers, obviously attached by the distributor rather than the manufacturer, as they were sourced from various different suppliers. I've owned numerous Rose Morris instruments & these "serials" are always 4-digit, which would be ridiculously limiting if each number was actually unique. So I have no idea why they called a batch number a serial, but I think that's what they did. Fwiw if I was selling an Avon SG in nice, original condition, I think I'd hope to get around £120 - £150. These were decent budget instruments, but not the top tier of 70s MIJ copies.

That would've been a fiver over the odds. Still, shows what can be done with a crap sticker and some bullsh!t.

Don't know why I've refrained from commenting on this up to now - but bloody hell! That ticks every P - shaped box I have: MIJ, through-neck, maple board, double P - I could go on... Only ever seen this before in old catalogues, and not with a maple board: So I'm not sure whether yours is the FPM-80 or the BO-60. Apart from the price & finish, I'm unsure what the dfference is. Could be that yours is another model altogether and just not in any of the available catalogues. These only appear in the 1980 & '81 catalogues and will have been Japanese market models. Doubt if Fernades would have officially exported this sort of bass post "lawsuit era"! I don't see many basses I seriously covet these days but if you ever decide to part with it, I'd be very seriously interested!

I don't think so but I couldn't swear to it - it was a long time ago! He definitely played it on the '83 Signals tour.

CTTH was recorded at the Glasgow Apollo in 1980, on the PW tour. My ex-other half was part of the "Glasgow Chorus" credited in the ESL sleeve notes! I didn't see them on that tour - became a fan slightly too late to get a ticket for the 5 nights they played at the Hammy O. I do regret never having seen them in a smaller venue than the arenas they were booking from MP/ESL onwards. The 1981 Ingliston gig was my second-ever Rush show - it was technically the ESL tour as they'd just released that album, but programmes, merch & the set were all the same as MP. Apart from the sneaky rendition of the as-yet unrecorded Subdivisions...

ESL tour was the UK/Europe leg of the Moving Pictures tour. MP was released early '81. Still got my MP tour shirt somewhere.

Pretty torn up about this. Massive Rush fan since my teens - they are beyond doubt my biggest musical influence, and Neil's contemplative, philosophical and often spiritual lyrics inspired and affected me far beyond music. Goes without saying that he was a defining and extraordinary musician whose like we will not see again. I am privileged to have seen him play many times over the years, and those memories now have a deeper meaning.

Decent but butchered MIJ copy, probably late 70s. Would be worth picking up for around the £50 mark if it wasn't for the ham-fisted defret, which IMO would cost more than the bass' restored value to sort, unless you could do it yourself. As it stands, it's a decent set of tuners on some scrap firewood, which means the £26 it's currently at is double what I'd pay.