Bassassin

Yes - very tempting - and Thomann sometimes have them for a few quid less... Trouble is, I only need the neck! I've had a rather gorgeous J body sitting around for years, waiting for the right project.

It's a re-list. I'm willing to give the seller the benefit of the doubt and assume it's an error rather than assume he's a loony: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westone-Thunder-II-bass-identical-Thunder-III-new-strings-new-Gator-hard-case-/163303451162 That said, there are numerous unassuming little Westones listed at batsh!t prices, for example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Weststone-Thunder-1-A-Wine-Red-Electric-Bass-Guitar-Fully-Set-up-Made-In-Japan/291981481509 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westone-The-Rail-headless-bass-made-in-Japan-1985/302930017224 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westone-Thunder-1-Electric-Guitar-1982-with-original-hard-case/253940672863

I got one from China about 10 years ago when I was doing a lot of selling & buying, cost about £3. Quite a cheerful little thing it is, too.

Hard to tell what's going on - poor thing's face is proper smashed in, so it's likely the rear body cracks are connected. However - the cracks on the headstock look like water/damp damage to me, like it's been left in a cold/damp garage or loft for years. No telling what the consequences of that are - I'd want to see it first-hand before I'd risk much more than £60 on it.

Can't see any fretless basses on the site - are they dropping them or are they just well-hidden? I keep GASing over those bound/lined fretless maple necks...

That "SQ" neck is f***ing shocking! This is what an SQ headstock looks like. The s/n is on the bleedin' neckplate!

Pretty sure Jim Reed was one of those brands that was all over Ebay, 10 or so years ago. Some of them looked quite nice - as does that Jazz.

It's not a Kay. Think it's shortscale (look at the bridge position) and it has a zero-fret, suggesting it's pretty early, if it's MIJ. That being the case the pickup & scratchplate are probably not original, as early P type copies didn't have split pickups like this. Can't tell 100% from the pic but it looks like the pup has hex poles, in which case it's possibly a DiMarzio. Offer them a tenner for it.

Agreed - that head's hideous. Quite keen to get hold of one of the maple board fretless J necks for a project though - I'd remodel the head to a Tele shape.

Which was why I didn't bid! Went for a fair bit less than I expected, too.

Driftwood? Throw it back.

As it happens, it was. Not me though, the person in question (who shall remain nameless until such time as they identify themselves!) picked my Vintage MIJ - addled brains about it. Camel was a high-end Japan-only brand owned by Kyowa Shokai, who also sold the Fresher range. So this should be good quality, very rare & hopefully a bargain a £200-odd. Really hope so, gonna feel a bit guilty if it's a dog.

Well spotted - definitely the same hardware & pups. Does look like it's probably a Headway product.

It's tricky to establish range heirarchy with the SRs outwith current models. The SoundGear series has been around since the 80s & Ibanez regularly re-use & recycle model numbers for basses with pretty much unrelated specs. Fortunately pretty much every Ibby catalogue since 1960-whatever is available online, if you don't mind spending hours doing laborious spec comparisons!

I've seen Kubicki copies before, don't think they were branded Bass Collection though - would remember that. It's cool but I have a feeling it's going to get silly-expensive.

The price on that example is somewhat urealistic, but really does make me wish I'd bought one 15 or so years ago when you pretty much couldn't give them away. These & the solid-body Westone Quantums were seen as ridiculous, dated junk and would've struggled to make £100 a few years back.

Now that's cool in a slightly wrong sort of way! Never heard of this before & curious to know what the background is & who actually made it. If it was mid-80s, chances are it's a Chushin Gakki build. Rokkomann is a trading company not a manufacturer, and at that time had their own Maya & El Maya brands, as well as selling Rokkomann-branded instruments. El Maya was the high-end brand and these came from Chushin, so it's not unlikely that this did too. I want it, but not enough to actually buy it! Pretty sure it's a defret, too. Shame. Edit: Available for less money & with more frets! That's better... https://reverb.com/item/10545034-alembic-1986-aj-ii-hb Still ain't buying it though.

I like it, but I do have a thing about weird basses. Crying out to be headless-ed.

Spotted this in a newsagent's record rack when I was about 14. Made a big impression, it did.

The picture just makes me feel sorry for it, lying there like some poor, malformed experiment gone badly wrong. I just want to put it out of its misery. With a flamethrower.

Hilarious wishful thinking price - typical of that seller! Real world prices are closer to £300 for a Westy Track 4, not that they come up too often though. 2xP was a pretty common format in late 70s/early 80s MIJ basses, often clearly inspired by the BC Riches of the era. Never had one myself but always had GAS for one, something obscure like this would do nicely...

Quite so. It's a lot more interesting than any Fender - but similarly a lot more ugly. Late 70s, Japan-market only, as the weirdest stuff often is:

Interesting. It looks like an early (batwing headstock) SB900, with some unspecified mods. No such thing as an SR900, btw. The original SB900 was passive, seller claims this is active so maybe has had circuitry installed. Not 100% sure about controls for an early 900 (they were changed later) but I think this should be v/v/t, 3-way rotary selector, plus coil switch for each pickup. So no idea what's going on here! The bridge pickup's a replacement - it is an Aria unit but not correct for this bass. Anyway this is what it should look like: Intact examples of early SBs aren't very common but I'm inclined to think this is a bit overpriced for a bass with a number of unspecified mods. Putting it back to stock would be borderline impossible - while (costly) repro pickups are available, the knobs used on these simply don't exist anywhere other than on other basses - I've been looking for a pair for an SB-Elite for four years! With this one, I'd want a very close hands-on look at it, and the seller would have to be prepared to be haggled at, hard!

Can't quite be sure but when you zoom in on the headstock pic, it appears to be E-serial, MIJ. Does look a bit messed-up, but might be worth dumping a few quid on it just for that.