So expensive These Days? MIJ '75 R/I & 'Miller Sig Basses

[VTypeV4]

In 2004 had the fortune of having a MIJ '75 re-issue and it was a great bass. I paid £400 for it and sold it about 12 months later in a part-ex for a 5-string Jazz Bass Plus (the one with the kubicki and lace sensor bits) and got about the same back for it.

Later in 2006 i had to down grade my 4-string Jazz Bass Deluxe (cuz I broke my wrist when I threw my Suzuki at the road!) and wound up buying a Japenese Marcus Miller signature. I bought it £450 and was happy with it at first as its sounded great by itself but I really couldn't get it push its way through a band mix so six months later moved it on for £420. I bought a passive US Jazz bass after it had gone.

Fast forward to late 2011 and both of these basses are doing silly money on eBay now. People are regularly asking £750 and there's a 'Miller signature for £900 on currently! I know some (if not all?) of the new ones are US basses but the Japenese ones are pulling the same monies. Did I miss something somewhere?

[bubinga5]

i never knew why people are asking so much for MM's while others are asking 200-300 ponds less for a Japanese jazz? they were the same price ish back then and yjey are the same price ish now..

[Floyd Pepper]

I think it's more to do with people gauging the cost of a secondhand sale against the 'current' new price.
When I bought my original MM Jazz a few years ago and if my memory serves me right, I paid approx. £799 for it new. I then sold it for about £450 (50-60% of the cost of new one).
Then I realised the error of my ways and decided it was the only bass that I've ever missed so I bought an Olympic white MM but by then they had gone up to nearly £900.00 new.
Now, I see websites listing them new at over £1K. If you apply the 60% rule of thumb for a s/h one then you can see how they are reaching £6-700 used. (I notice that the ebay one for £900 has been listed a few times and was even cloned at one point so not sure about that one)

As it happens, it's still my main bass ( I changed the pre-amp to a Bartolini TCT) and for me, I haven't found anything else that has come near it.
Cheers,
Jim

[Doddy]

A quick google search shows that the Marcus Bass is now £1366 rrp,with a load of shops selling
them for around £1,036. So you can see why people are asking around £750 secondhand.
The US made five string is now well over 2 grand.

It makes me glad that I bought mine a few years ago when they were still a pretty good price-mine
was just under £700 brand new.

[Cat Burrito]

As a massive Fender fan I think Fender got it really wrong. The recession kicked in, people are struggling so they jacked the prices right up. My most modern bass is late 80s now so it doesn't directly affect me but it was a poor move

[bigjohn]

You wanna check the price of 2nd hard disks on ebay.

[VTypeV4]

Interesting observations there gents..

Maybe Fender are just being greedy? But in all fairness, they wouldn't be the first..

Paul, I know you'll never sell yours! Especially cuz whats on the back of the headstock!

[steve-bbb]

[quote name='BurritoBass' timestamp='1320481512' post='1427323']
As a massive Fender fan I think Fender got it really wrong. The recession kicked in, people are struggling so they jacked the prices right up. My most modern bass is late 80s now so it doesn't directly affect me but it was a poor move
[/quote]
theyre not the only ones - when the recession fired up a couple of years ago my first thoughts were 'great i should be able to get a few good photographic bargains only to discover that Canon had massively hiked their RRP's '