Bassassin

The good news is that the better quality ones are easy to spot when you know what to look for. Manufacturers like Matsumoku, Fujigen, Kasuga, who all made nice quality EB clones, all have traits & details which make them identifiable. By the same token, examples that aren't as good can also be easy to recognise - like the one in the link. This was probably an early Avon or Columbus, with a metal pin-badge that's been removed. Not necessarily a terrible bass but it'll have a ply body, cheap pickups & electronics & may take some work to make it play nicely. Not necessarily a problem if it's sub - £100, but £229 for this is well OTT. Look out for a neckplate with the MIJ stamp on the top half, and Hofner-style staple pickup (really a cheap single coil), and don't pay much! These will be branded Columbus, Grant, CMI, Sumbro, Avon, amongst others Things to look for on the better quality examples: Matsumoku details include offset position dots, "Steel Adjustable Neck" neckplate stamp, arrowhead-shaped trc. They turn up branded Eros, Jedson, Arbiter, Aria. Fujigens were sold branded Ibanez, Antoria, CSL etc. Very similar in appearance to the Avons & Columbuses, but look for a neckplate stamp on the lower half, and bridge pickup with double rows of pole pieces. This is an Antoria I had a few years ago: It's probably not helpful in these apocalyptic times of self-isolation and ravaging, infected hordes tearing each other to pieces over the last 6-pack of Andrex - but that was a car boot find. Anyway, if I see anything that fits the bill, I'll post it here. If anything turns up you want an ID for or opinion about, I'm happy to help.

I think this is probably mid 80s. As far as I know the Arbors were a budget line alongside the very decent Hohner Professional range. There wasn't a connection to 80s Marlins (the ones with the 12th fret fish inlay) at that point, as Marlin was owned by British Music Strings in Wales. Hohner later bought the Marlin brand but I think Arbors were long gone by then. Not very interesting - but you did ask!

Has he customised/improved it by drilling some holes through it and carving a c0ck on the back with a screwdriver?

"If you can draw it, I can build it". Shall we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume none of his customers can draw?

Scotland's finest - the mighty Love Fist!

Pretty much everything I've bought in the last 5 years (including a full PC-based recording setup) has been wildly under-used to the point of being ignored, mostly because of work & life stuff getting in the way. Top of the heap however is a very lovely Sire V7 fretless, which I got over a year ago and have noodled on for probably less than an hour in total. I've never plugged it in (the batteries are unconnected and still in their wrapping) and it still has the protective film on the scratchplate & pickups. At least there's no dust on those, then.

I skim-read the topic title as Fender S-Pig.

64 Spoons was the second gig I ever went to, playing a pub (might've been the White Horse) on Chatham Hill in 1978. Me & some schoolmates had gone along to see a local punky/pub rock band who'd cancelled, & 64 Spoons filled in. Don't remember much other than being confused by their rambling proggy/jazzy/trumpety material, and how nice they were, putting up with loads of stupid questions from a bunch of half-cut underage kids who'd decided (the week before!) to start a band! I saw quite a lot of bands at the same venue, including The Pop Rivets, featuring Medway music scene demigod Billy Childish - who I'd actually known a little from school. Saw loads from the NWOBHM era in the late 70s/early 80s - Samson featuring Bruce (Bruce) Dickinson and a demented blood-drooling masked drummer called Thunderstick, an unknown Saxon supporting Motorhead (classic Fast Eddie, Philthy & Lem lineup), and many of the bands from that scene that Sounds used to write about - Tank, Girlschool, Vardis, Chrome Molly, Dedringer, Witchfynde, Magnum, Tygers Of Pan Tang... Many of them were bloody awful, even to a drunk 17-year old. Never saw DiAnno-era Maiden, unfortunately. I was (unfashionably) a massive fan of Angel Witch, and saw them more times than I can count, from when they were an unsigned 4-piece. It's tragic they achieved so little at the time, considering the massive influence they're credited with on the thrash & doom/stoner scenes. A consequence of being broadly ridiculed by the music press, and some disastrously bad management decisions by guitarist Kev Heybourne's dad, who effectively blew out a deal with EMI. My best "I was there" story sadly isn't mine - and I wish it was! A guitarist pal from Glasgow, who I played in a couple of bands with in the 90s, got dragged along to see a schoolmate's cousin's band on their first UK tour in 1977. Free tickets, front row at the old Glasgow Apollo, and got to hang out with the band afterwards. The band was Rush, the cousin was Neil Peart.

Neckplate & number positioning look fine to me.

Any chance you can take a close, clear, well-lit pic of the "number" just for the sake of the elimination of doubt? I've upscaled/enhanced as best I can and it certainly looks like an MIJ Fender s/n to me. They're often pretty indistinct:

FTFY.

I really like that. Would be fascinating to get a look at one and see how it plays. Meanwhile... I get the impression as long as it has "USA" on it, they don't have to.

Doesn't look like he's that interested in comments/advice - he hasn't been on here in 24 hours. Starting to look ever so slightly like he might have assumed he'd find a bit more sympathy here. And by "sympathy", I mean "mugs".

Sounds like a plan. Quick, go set up a GoFundMe for a £5000 titanium road bike!

I mentioned in @Beedster's Washburn thread that these turn up on some budget 80s Korean basses. QED, then. Can't see much from the pics but looks OK, assuming no-one bids on it...

This is what happens when someone looks at a Wishbass, and (perhaps understandably) thinks - I could do that. And then discovers they couldn't.

Seems Mr Gull isn't about to say what bass he currently plays. Shame, it would be interesting to know what's holding him back from realising his playing aspirations. Might be educational too - having never, ever paid more than £480 for any bass (and that was massive exception!) who knows what dizzying altitudes I might have reached, if only I'd had two an a half grand's worth of handcrafted exotica at my fingertips... I'm not going to participate in the low-key pile-on this thread's become. Good luck to him; I appreciate the aspirations and achievements of chancers and gyppos, because I'm not ashamed to count myself among that cohort. Possibly my proudest moment was flogging a guitar for £300, having picked it up at my local car boot for £7.50. Some long-term BC members may be aware I did that sort of thing quite a lot a few years back, and while I never kept a running total, I'm confident I made enough to buy several of them pretty Mayonnaise thingies. So while I applaud this chap's craven brass neck, I'm not entirely sure his methods will pay off. No, actually I am entirely sure a combination of a dodgy raffle and glorified begging will unfortunately achieve very little. There's not a single reason why anyone might give him a bung to buy a fancy toy. So @cgull you want ideas for how you might raise cash? Buy stuff, sell it for more than you paid for it - and repeat. There's a reasonably well-established precedent for that being an effective way to generate profit.

So this isn't a mistimed April Fool, then. Just curious, Mr @cgull, what bass do you play at the moment?

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!