I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with buying a Squire Jazz for around £250 and stick on £600 of upgrades as a reality but I do like the idea of spending a couple of hundred on a £500 bass. I think when you are spending more on the upgrades than the initial value of the bass you should maybe be looking at if this is the best way to spend money. I completely agree on making it personal and also agree you have to consider resale value. After all if you have to make that many alterations surely you should be questioning why you bought that model in the first place. Different if it's a project bass from scratch.
About 5 or 6 years ago I moved onto guitar and when I was AWOL from bass I got seriously into modifying teles. New pups, new bridges. I made them sound great but it made no real difference on re-sale value. Returning to bass, all my basses are stock now by comparison with the exception of 2 - one had parts wear out and the other was the result of a dirt cheap EBay bargain of a pickup that I'd have been a fool to pass up on.
[quote name='Bassassin' post='751466' date='Feb 19 2010, 11:32 PM']If you must have it saying "Fender" on the end, remember that for US basses you pay a premium for the fact that it was made in the States - not for quality.
Buy a Japanese Fender & save £300.
Jon.[/quote]
I'm not really too bothered what it says on the headstock but this was my view for years.... and still is to an extent.