Bassassin

I'm leaning towards thinking he actually believes a lot of this guff himself. Sounds like he's chucked a lot of money at what's basically a generic £90 Korean Jazz copy, unless he's making it up. Anyone ever heard of these "not available in the UK" Roadrunner pickups?

Anyone disappointed in missing out on this might - I said might - just be interested in this, fresh from Chinaland. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Starshine-High-Quality-Electric-Bass-with-Colorful-LED-Light-Acrylic-Body/293224346909 Lighty-uppy twinkly LEDs. Oooh!

Good (from a blagger's POV) to see this sort of thing still happens! I've had more than my fair share of very, very silly Ebay bargains - typically when the seller had no idea what they had, or from errors in the listing making it hard for most people to find. Really very unusual these days.

Just posted a pic of this in a different thread. This bass - a CSL-branded Jazz copy from 1980-ish - was a £60 pawn shop blag back when I was making a few bob buying & selling old MIJ basses & guitars. Bought it to tidy up & flip, but it turned out to be simply the nicest-playing bass I have ever picked up - just feels completely "right". Original pickups were weak so I popped in a pair of DiMarzio Model Js. Bridge, stack knobs & scratchplate were really just for fun, nothing wrong with the originals. This has been my go-to bass for probably 15 years or so now, and the one I'd keep if all the others had to go.

Funnily enough, this is the one I'd save in a fire. A bit modded but it's a beast, nicest neck I've played on anything. It is a re-badged Cimar, as I expect the h/h hardtail Strat @Meddle talked about was.

Just had a look at the GuitarGuitar listing - not surprised it sold, these are like rocking-horse poo & that's in excellent nick for a 1972-ish bass. Would've been tempted myself if I'd seen it, tbh, and I don't even have GAS for one! Checking out the old Ibanez catalogue images, yes, the CSL is the exact same bass as Ibanez: If you're wondering why the bass in the Ibby catalogue has no brand, it's because the images were Fujigen factory shots - if there was a CSL catalogue, it would've used the same pic, as would Antoria, who also sold these basses in the UK. They also used the same model numbers.

Cheers Mr 'Bag! Summerfields was UK importer for Ibanez during the notorious 70s copy era, and it seems as part of the deal they sourced their own CSL brand from Ibanez owner, Hoshino Gakki. Ibanez has only ever been a brand name, not a manufacturer, and I think the CSL Dan Armstrong copies very likely are the same instruments as Ibanez, and as Fleabag says, made by Fujigen. Later CSLs were rebrands of Hoshino's Cimar range & don't look like Fgn builds to me. Looks like most of the Japanese factories in the mid-70s had their own version of the acrylic Armstrong - there's a long & interesting (if you like that sort of thing) article about them on the Dan Armstrong info site: http://www.danarmstrong.org/copies.html Regarding acrylic basses in general, a few years back I lobbed this together - body came from a cheapo thing branded AXL and everything else from the parts box: Absolute back-breaker, and unfortunately the neck turned out to be like a bendy tree trunk. Would be the very definition of a wall-hanger, assuming I wanted huge lumps of plaster & brickwork ripped out of said wall.

Lacklustre? They were on the level of a school band's second rehearsal - sloppy, out-of-time and inept. This sort of stuff can be great when played well, but this lot were pretty much incompetent. What they're "doing right" is having marketing money behind them, which is likely to be a lot more to do with what the singer looks like than anything else.

This has been causing some consternation on the Ebay etc board! https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/364787-jacoland-barcelona-custom-built-guitar/

Looking at his other items, turns out this has been listed 5 times already. Now I'm genuinely wondering if it's actually a sophisiticated example of surrealist satire.

Certainly the MIJ Squiers. Understandable with the early 80s JVs & SQs, which are both rare & high-quality, but the 90s Silver Series has nothing over the MIK stuff that was around at the same time. Apart from that "Made In Japan" decal. Which, of course, gave rise to Fender doing a deal with Kanda Shokai (owner of the Greco brand) to set up Fender Japan, on condition they ceased production of Greco-branded Fender copies. Round & round it goes.

Would think you could import one from Japan for less than that. Like I expect the seller did...

Body could well be MIJ, don't think the neck is. Whip the neck off & see if there's a heel stamp, might be an Allprats or other licensed Fender type. I think the neck's probably been bought unbranded & the decal's an Ebay special - and, in an unusual moment of honesty, whoever applied it cut off the bit that said "Fender"! I quite like it, tbh, I do like a maple/dots neck on a J. If it was mine the black hardware would be straight back on Ebay and replaced with some nice chrome/nickel bits. And a proper string tree!

Sorry about the belated reply! Hand-cut fairly roughly with a junior hacksaw, shaped with various files followed by increasingly fine grades of sandpaper, final polish with good, old-fashioned T-Cut! They're fairly small pieces so hand-cutting's not much of a chore given how easy the material is to work with. I have a scroll saw but that does tend to melt the acrylic.

If someone offers you £140 for it, yes.

It's a bitsa, by the looks. Inclined to think the body isn't solid timber - the big black oversprays on the front & rear contours are the giveaway, they'll probably be concealing either ply laminates or (if you're lucky) the edges of veneered mahogany butcher-block. I get the feeling the body & neck are separated by a few years - the neck looks much newer. The body might be from a 70s/80s copy - all those holes above the scratchplate are weird, but the ones for ashtrays are likely original, and consistent with older copies. So, looks like someone's put together a bass with an old body & new neck & hardware - the neck looks decent - it's a single-piece without the separate glued-on fretboard often found on budget necks. Bridge & tuners look functional rather than exotic, unfortunately though you can't tell much about the pickups from the pics. Although I'd lean towards thinking they're newer than the body - I can't see any wear on the tops or corrosion/discolouration of the poles.

Seller appears to be an Italian music shop. Br*x*t surcharge?

Jean-Jacques Burnel, Dennis Dunaway & John Entwistle.

In a similar vein, Westbury Track 2? MIJ (Matsumoku) approx 1980, DiMarzio Model P, 34" scale. A bit knocked about, but in decent playing order. Not getting played basically because I never manage to coax a tone I like out of a single P!

Shame. That must've been a good-looking bass before some twonk repeatedly reversed a bus over it.

Indeed - and for a long time I'd remind myself that McCartney claimed he decided not to learn to read because he worried that it might affect the way he wrote. Which sounds like a good excuse about as much as it sounds like bollox!

I'd still be a bassist - it's the only instrument I'm good enough on to consider getting on a stage with. That said, I've always been predominantly a writer/composer. I play guitar well enough to write with & to record, given an indefinite number of takes. If I could change anything, I'd never have stopped playing keyboards (drifted away in the early 90s) or drums, which I dabbled with when I shared a house with someone who had a kit. I'd also focus on learning some actual theory - I'm painfully aware that everything I know I just sort of picked up along the way. Having those skills would add a lot to my writing & recording - I often feel musically stagnant and hampered by my limited vocabuary & ability, These days I lack both the motivation to resume playing other instruments, or the focus to study theory. That might change going forward but I doubt it.

Genuine question - what would you consider to be a good lyric?

Very nice work! I've done a couple of these, for basses where the pickup positioning didn't give me anywhere natural-feeling to prop my thumb. I love working with acrylic, very easy to cut & shape, and really satisfying to get a nice finish. Cort B2 Headless: Kawai Sleekline:

Thanks for that link, a good compendium of the Fender derived Cimars - oddly, apart from one. This should be of interest... The Cimar Stinger range was exactly the same as the short-lived Mk 1 Blazers, identical apart from the badge. These are Fujigen builds - can confirm this as I have a Mk1 Blazer, it has a Fgn serial and uses most of the same components as later Blazers and Roadsters. Why Hoshino sold these identical instruments simultaneously under both their premium and second-tier brands is anyone's guess. I'd speculate that the incorporation of Ibanez design features into the Cimar range was an attempt to associate the two, perhaps to boost the prestige (and therefore the sales) of the Cimar brand. Later Cimars (post MIJ production, I think) were marketed as "Cimar by Ibanez" but with the ones we're looking at, there's no associated branding on either the instruments or the marketing materials. Interesting that the page you linked to is German - seems Cimars were much more widely marketed in Germany than the UK, most of the Cimar catalogue scans come from Meinl.de, who distributed Cimar & Ibanez in Germany. A reason for this might be that Ibanez' UK distributor at the time, Charles Summerfield Ltd, actually sourced their own CSL range through Hoshino - and they were re-badged Cimars, right down to the Blazer/Stinger headstocks. As an owner/previous owner of two Cimars, one CSL and a Mk1 Blazer, I've always been curious about the Cimar brand. There are various 70s catalogues for the original copy-era Cimars, and they do depict a comprehensive range, from basic starter instruments to high-end replica level stuff. Looking at these I'm inclined to think that initially Cimar was entirely separate from Ibanez, and merely shared distribution through Hoshino. It's likely that subsequently Hoshino acquired the brand and developed it specifically as a budget Ibanez line. Would love to know which factories made them, but so far I've found little to go on.