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Questionable John Birch


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[quote name='ash' timestamp='1478637596' post='3170563']
[url="http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/131997420784?_mwBanner=1"]http://m.ebay.co.uk/...784?_mwBanner=1[/url]

Opinions? Looks like a car crash bass to me!
[/quote]

Well adrift of the quality of my 1970s JB EB3 type bass (long since departed from my care). Build quality is not a phrase that springs to mind looking at the pictures. Car crash? more like a train wreck. My £500 will be better used elsewhere.

Edited by 3below
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Lacking (as I do) any knowledge of the formative era of the Birch brand, I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. However if I judge it solely on appearance, it looks like an emulsioned, dessicated and abused bit of Soviet-era Eastern European junk with Letraset on the end.

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[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1478686064' post='3170863']
IIRC from the interview in International Musician, Mr Birch had some very strong views on bolt-on necks and none of them were favourable.
[/quote]

I suppose it's just about possible that he might have arrived at those views by building a few in his early days, though I have no idea if the bass linked could be one of his.

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I still think it's Eastern European, or (at a pinch) 60s Italian. Hardware's weird & unidentifiable, string spacing is that strange narrow, parallel setup that Rickenbackers or early Italian & Soviet-era things always seem to have. Pickups I would say are swapped - their design looks much more recent (80s?) and the strings are nowhere near the poles as a result. The whole thing's had B&Q emulsion slopped all over it and the headstock "decal" (over the paint) is so inept the letters aren't even lined up.

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[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1478789170' post='3171653']
Pickups look a little like Maxon humbuckers from the '70s but painted black.
[/quote]

Same sort of layout but they're a different shape (longer), the adjuster screws are on the tops rather than tabs, and the pole pieces look to be cross-head.

Plus they probably are 'buckers - which the Maxons ain't! ;)

[sharedmedia=core:attachments:69930]

Odd pickups - they do look familiar but I can't place them.

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Every John Birch bass I've played has been of top notch build quality and as someone else pointed out of through or fixed neck design. Birch was very interested in the pickups and electrical switching side of guitar design and these look nothing like the pickups Birch made. Elsewhere on this site is a thread about a Birch 8 string bass I just bought off evilBay even though this bass needs total restoration it's evidently far superior to the one in this listing.

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[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1478807668' post='3171855']
That's OK Jon, the builder clearly couldn't place them either.
[/quote]

:D

Pretty sure they're not original - they look from an entirely different era to the rest of the thing - so an ID wouldn't tell us much anyway.

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