Bassassin

Nasty bit of delam going on there. Seen that fairly often on older 4001s but didn't think 4003s were prone to it. "Nothing major", says the seller.

Pretty much the same as the OP - it was 1978, I was 16, me & a bunch of schoolmates decided to form a band as we walked home from what was the first gig I (and probably they) went to, having underaged our way into a boozer to watch a bunch of local heroes. I was happy to be bassist, as my listening included The Stranglers, Motorhead, The Who, The Jam etc, so upfront, aggressive bass playing was very much on my radar. The decision to start a band was really just the result of being a bit the worse for wear after a couple of halves of bitter shandy, nonetheless a few weeks later I got a bass & started to learn. Several of the others ended up in bands, although none of us ever actually played together!

Looks familiar...

Anyone buying an Ibanez Axstar or a Washburn Force 42 for £300 or less is committing a mugging.

STB-GT, mid '00s. Basically a Stingray with a P shaped body & a skinny maple/blocks J neck. These are probably Indonesian or Chinese but very nice quality. Paid £100 for mine...

That's disappointing. To be fair, you could do a lot worse than the Cort suggested upthread by @Paul S - these are great little basses from the mid-80s (I have one) with licensed Steinberger hardware, quality neckthrough construction and nice, playable necks. They have standard P/J pickups so are dead easy to upgrade, plus are pretty rare & unique these days. Alternatively, if you're handy with a hacksaw, hammer & nails and a bodge sauce gun, you could make your own, like what I done last year.

Maybe if enough of us gang up on GuitarGuitar, we can persuade them to start importing that SQOE headless. Apropos of nothing, is it pronounced 'Squee'? It is now. SQUEEEEEEE!!!

Surprised they never got one of Big John's C&D letters for the Rick one.

They're nice enough basses for what they are - Fujigen model 2365B, same thing with Ibanez on the end is probably in the £400+ in good nick. The Status thing's a bit odd - until that acoustic turned up I'd only seen the J copies - and those actually appeared in an early 70s Jedson blurb:

Blimey. 1981, aged 19. I'd been playing bass for 3 years & jamming with various mates but nothing came to anything. I knew my way around the bass reasonably well by then, so joined a local originals band looking for a bassist, was out gigging within a couple of months.

Could be related to this: But not related to anything of Rob's.

Theses are, apparently 'BUMPONS'. Bumpon. I had no expectation of learning any new words today, but there you are. Bumpon. BUMPON. BUMPON. BUMPON.

Well, I wasn't - but I have had a bit of a hankering for a guitar with a partucular spec - Strat-ish hardtail, Fender neck dimensions, 3 pickups with a coil-split bridge 'bucker. Preferably maple board & nice-grained or vibrantly coloured top, just for fun. Seems to be a broadly non-existent format (apart from a version of Charvel's San Dimas, which is about £800), until a few days ago I quite accidentally happened across this: Which, from this morning is in the G4M Black Friday sale for £139. Needless to say, there's one in the post.

Another miseryguts masterpiece. Cry, damn you, cry! 'Ere we go:

May not be the answer the OP was expecting, but that's the answer. Through-neck, 2x humbucking soapbars - Gibbo T-Bird IV, 1963.

I don't tend to be drawn to the happy-clappy, saccharine nonsense of most love songs. For some reason it's the existential angst & misery of loves lost, spurned or unrequited which seems to resonate with me. What an old goth pal of mine used to call 'slash-wrists music'.

I somehow never managed to nab a single Deko, despite checking regularly. Really wanted one of their T-Bird clones for £40, before they changed the body shape.

That's £200 more than it's worth. £30's probably OK for that old set of Schaller M4s.

Nasty late 70s Korean-made cheapo, would probably originally have been branded Satellite. Horrible plywood rubbish - I picked one up from Crack Converters for £25 a few years back. In fairness to them they had it up for £50 but happily gave me a 50% discount because one pickup wasn't working. This is still £142 with an hour left to go so fortunately it's not fooling many people. Will be bleakly amusing if it leaps up to £500 in the last 30 seconds.

Found a pic of the 2-pickup version body - the filled-in route is the right place for the neck pickup but the rest of the routing's totally different. Even if it started being routed for 2 pickups, you'd wonder why they'd bother filling it, considering a pickguard was going to cover it. Looks like veneered mahogany to me, solid rather than butcher-block.

I want a blue one. Shop in Thailand selling them, can't find any shipping info on the English version of the site but 9600 Baht = £220. https://www.musicplant.co.th/en/product/82298-80664/sqoesebs990

Strange one, that. Wonder if the routing template got put on the wrong place initially?

Just had a look at these on GG and if I was in the market for a passive J, I'd be down there tomorrow morning. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/230811411491027--sqoe-sjb800-sunrise-fade £189? Get in the bin, Harley Benton. Unfortunately no sign of that headless, though.

Probably did. My mum would have the radio on a lot so I was exposed to whatever was chart material at the time (mid 60s/70s) & she also was a bit of a classical music fan. I hated the light opera she sometimes listened to but the more bombastic orchestral stuff made a connection. I'm quite fond of a bit of bombast as well as a memorable hook, and I doubt that's a complete coincidence.