Does anybody know what bass this is?

[adrihongkong]

Hi all,

I'm trying to find our more information about this bass (pictures attached). 

All I know is that it looks like a Fender copy made by Aria in Japan around 1970 like these basses here:

 http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/bass/fbs/fndr_bass.html

However, the colour combination of body/pick guard is different, and the logo on the headstock is something I haven't seen anywhere else on the internet.

Can somebody help me?

The serial number is AP2457, even though I know it might not be of much help.

Thank you!

Adrian.

[Bassassin]

That's really quite interesting. On first glance I'd say it's probably 70s Japanese - although some of the better Korean instruments from that era can be hard to distinguish from MIJ. I don't think it's the same bass as the Matsumoku-built Arias, although there was an Aria Diamond sub-brand. Instruments branded just "Diamond" occur quite regularly in various different territories and it's not clear if all, or in fact any, are connected to Aria. It's probable several unconnected distributors used the Diamond name.

What's most unusual about this bass is the headstock shape - almost all 70s MIJ Fender copies used the standard Fender style. Some (including Aria) changed the head shape from around 1977, after Gibson's threatened litigation against Ibanez over their use of the Gibson head style (the so-called "lawsuit") but this isn't a style used by Aria.

For me, that's particularly interesting on a Fender type bass which has the large chrome truss cover seen here. On early 70s instruments, several Japanese factories used these, including Fujigen, Matsumoku and Chushin. All phased these out by around 1972, apart from Chushin who continued their use on budget Fender copies throughout the 1970s.

I've been interested in these old guitars & basses for a long time and this one is the first I've ever seen to combine that early truss cover style with a non-Fender headstock. The headstock points to late 70s, as does the position of the thumbrest - earlier instruments have it fitted below the strings as a tug-bar, as the late 60s/early 70s Fenders would have.

There may be some clues to its origin in some of the bits you haven't shown, so if possible pics of the neckplate, tuner backs, pickups & bridge might be useful. Neckplates can sometimes identify a specific manufacturer, or at least, narrow down who didn't make it.

Finally - it really looks in exceptional condition, pretty much unplayed to my eyes. Very unusual to see something like this where the neck lacquer hasn't yellowed significantly. Looks like it's been in a box for 40 years!

[adrihongkong]

Thank you very much for the info, Bassassin.

Here are a few more 'clues' about the bass. I hope somebody in the community can figure this out!

I bought this bass a few days ago in Hong Kong, and the guy didn't seem to know what he had on his hands. He said the bass 'had been made by Aria Pro' but had no idea about the year, etc.

Let me know if there is any other part you would like to see.

Thank you again.

Adrian.

[Geek99]

Are the pups the same size (exactly)?

[adrihongkong]

I think so. I don't have the instrument with me right now but I believe they are exactly the same size. 

[Geek99]

That’s a bit unusual 

[3below]

Body wood grain is really good  I like it.

[Bassassin]

Thanks for the pics @adrihongkong - good to see a few more details. These definitely help establish who didn't build rather than who did, but there are a few intriguing details too.

I am struck again by the fact this looks so factory-fresh, I've never seen a 40+ year-old bass before with no tarnishing & discolouration of the metalwork, or ageing of the wood (particularly the neck) no matter how well looked after it's been.

OK, I don't think it's anything to do with Aria. Aria Diamond was a distinct sub-brand with an unambiguous logo, here's a late 70s decal:

 

So anyway, I think this is a different Diamond, and could be related to this one that came up last year, which I think is a Tokai build:

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/389192-diamond-bass-made-in-japan/

I spraffed about that one at some length on that thread so won't repeat myself too much!

The problem with positive IDs of random 70s MIJ basses is that there are distinct ID characteristics for just a handful of manufacturers, but in the industry's heyday there were dozens, if not hundreds of companies, from huge mass-production factories to backstreet workshops turning them out. And there's this issue, what with them being copies, that they do all tend to look similar...

There are some details about the bass & similarities to other instruments that make me think it's from the same manucaturer as those other instruments - but that's not a whole lot of help when I don't know who the manufacturer was. It is, I think, from the maker responsible for Cimar & UK brand CSL. I would say it's the same as the Cimar model 1908ASH in this mid 70s catalogue:

A few differences, notably the tuners, headstock and neck heel. These basses have round-ended J pickups & a 2-saddle bridge under the covers, I would say the Diamond is a later version of that bass. Worth noting that late 70s Cimars were fitted with the same 3-screw torque-adjustable tuners fitted to the Diamond.

The problem is that it's not known who made these Cimars. Cimar was distributed by, and subsequently owned by Hoshino Gakki, owner of the Ibanez brand, but the copy-era guitars at least, were not made by the factory which made Ibanez.

A lot of the dead-ends in this research often lead to an organisation known as the Matsumoto Manufacturers Union or Association, which seemingly came into being to make smaller businesses more competitive against the bigger players at the time. This is worth a read if anyone's interested:

Quote

The Matsumoto Musical Instruments Union (or Manufacter's Association) was, as far as I've been told by people in Matsumoto with firsthand knowledge of it, were a group that put out a catalog with parts that you could order from them and pick and choose to assemble your guitar. Most of it was standard fare - Teles, Strats, SGs, and Les Pauls. They might have gotten the nicer bodies from Matsumoku, cheaper bodies from someone else, hardware from Shinetsu Byora (standard hardware supplier in Matsumoto - still around), electronics from Gotoh or Maxon, etc. And then they would assemble the OEM component guitar for you and put your brand on it. They seem to have been active mostly in the early to mid-70's. The metal truss rod cover seems to have been an original thing with them, and you sometimes see these on early Grecos, Ibanez guitars which makes people think these are Matsumoku - but they don't have the Matsumoku neck plates, and they're not the same build type as Fujigen, which is how we can separate them, if not positively identify where all the components came from.

There were a lot of little, little wood working factories back in the original guitar boom of the 60's that turned to manufacturing guitar parts (as opposed to say wooden bowls) while the market was hot, and then went back to turning out wooden bowls when the market cooled - but they would still moonlight and make bodies, etc. when an order came in. Probably a lot of these factories were used, and as they had previously manufactured bodies and necks to spec for some of the larger factories, their product was close in style and quality to those when they'd do these. This was told to me by the former plant manager at Kurokumo (which itself also used to make wooden bowls before it became a guitar factory full time in the 60s)
Craig Campbell, Vintage Japanese Guitar Fanclub

Anyway, given myself a headache (real, not metaphorical!) trying to get my head around this & get it into some sort of order. I'm off for a lie down.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Bassassin

[LukeFRC]

16 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

A few differences, notably the tuners, headstock and neck heel. These basses have round-ended J pickups & a 2-saddle bridge under the covers, I would say the Diamond is a later version of that bass. Worth noting that late 70s Cimars were fitted with the same 3-screw torque-adjustable tuners fitted to the Diamond.

The bridge reminded me of the 1975 Cimar 1908ash you helped me with the tuner brushing for years back. 

it's really odd how the body had yellowed but the fretboard hasn't

[Bassassin]

On 12/06/2020 at 15:46, LukeFRC said:

The bridge reminded me of the 1975 Cimar 1908ash you helped me with the tuner brushing for years back. 

it's really odd how the body had yellowed but the fretboard hasn't

I think it's a later version of the same bass as yours, from the same factory. The colouring is interesting, but to me looks like a new instrument or one that's not been exposed to light, the neck & body being a naturally more yellow colour than the fretboard. hardware looks brand-new too.

[LukeFRC]

17 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

I think it's a later version of the same bass as yours, from the same factory. The colouring is interesting, but to me looks like a new instrument or one that's not been exposed to light, the neck & body being a naturally more yellow colour than the fretboard. hardware looks brand-new too.

Not mine anymore. Sold it (v cheap) to a mate. He’s still playing it

[fleabag]

Does the rounded ends of the pickups narrow the possiblities a bit. ?

I remember about  15 years ago i bought one of  the MIJ copies  ( or Korean, who knows ) and the J pickups had the curved / rounded / radiused corners.  Could have been Cimar / CSl /  et al

[Bassassin]

2 hours ago, fleabag said:

Does the rounded ends of the pickups narrow the possiblities a bit. ?

Again - that tells us who it's not, rather than who it is. Fujigen seem never to have used this style, Ibanez, Antoria, Greco etc J copies have conventional square-ended units. On their various Jazz copies, Matsumoku used a few distinct styles unique to them as well as standard types. The only Mats I remember seeing these on are some permutations of Westone Thunder II & IIIs. Don't think I've seen round-ends on Kasuga, Yamaki or Tokai either, but there's so much indeterminate stuff it's hard to be sure.

Manufacturers who did use these include Chushin & Moridaira, they also appear on Yamahas but they contracted out to various other manufacturers and as far as I know there's no record of who built what.

2 hours ago, fleabag said:

or Korean, who knows

Me, usually. Which is how I know that style of pickup was used on plenty of Korean basses in the mid/late 70s.

Actually, interesting you mention Cimar & CSL, the two brands are related. Cimar was owned by Ibanez owner Hoshino, CSL was house-brand of UK Ibanez importer Summerfields. CSLs were usually re-brands of Cimars, sourced through the distribution deal with Hoshino. I think the OP's bass is from the same factory as Cimar/CSL (too many common details for coincidence, knowing what I do) I just don't know who the manufacturer was, yet. While I have specific reservations, Chushin Gakki's a strong possibility, and that's what I expect he'd be told if he were to do the rounds of the various MIJ FB groups.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't like to be told their instrument's not what they want it to be, it seems.

[fleabag]

Oh, yes.  Charles Summerfield Ltd.  I couldnt swear on a holy book, but i think mine was CSL or Cimar

[LukeFRC]

2 hours ago, Bassassin said:

Again - that tells us who it's not, rather than who it is. Fujigen seem never to have used this style, Ibanez, Antoria, Greco etc J copies have conventional square-ended units. On their various Jazz copies, Matsumoku used a few distinct styles unique to them as well as standard types. The only Mats I remember seeing these on are some permutations of Westone Thunder II & IIIs. Don't think I've seen round-ends on Kasuga, Yamaki or Tokai either, but there's so much indeterminate stuff it's hard to be sure.

Manufacturers who did use these include Chushin & Moridaira, they also appear on Yamahas but they contracted out to various other manufacturers and as far as I know there's no record of who built what.

Me, usually. Which is how I know that style of pickup was used on plenty of Korean basses in the mid/late 70s.

Actually, interesting you mention Cimar & CSL, the two brands are related. Cimar was owned by Ibanez owner Hoshino, CSL was house-brand of UK Ibanez importer Summerfields. CSLs were usually re-brands of Cimars, sourced through the distribution deal with Hoshino. I think the OP's bass is from the same factory as Cimar/CSL (too many common details for coincidence, knowing what I do) I just don't know who the manufacturer was, yet. While I have specific reservations, Chushin Gakki's a strong possibility, and that's what I expect he'd be told if he were to do the rounds of the various MIJ FB groups.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't like to be told their instrument's not what they want it to be, it seems.

I am not @Bassassin, I am not even a Padawan of 70s Japanese stuff but it looks so similar to the Cimar I had, even that bloody horrid bridge with the adjustment screws sniffing for blood. I seem to have lost the images from around then though.

Edited June 15, 2020 by LukeFRC
spelling

[fleabag]

Cimar on Ebay with the rounded end pickups and horrid bridge and big 'bell'  chrome truss rod cover

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/70s-CIMAR-by-IBANEZ-JB-BASS-made-in-JAPAN/174315907073?hash=item289609a801:g:C9IAAOSwHqddAtWs

[Bassassin]

1 hour ago, fleabag said:

Cimar on Ebay with the rounded end pickups and horrid bridge and big 'bell'  chrome truss rod cover

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/70s-CIMAR-by-IBANEZ-JB-BASS-made-in-JAPAN/174315907073?hash=item289609a801:g:C9IAAOSwHqddAtWs

Had one the same:

Overall similar to the Columbuses & Grants of the era but clearly not the same manufacturer, despite sharing a lot of identical hardware.

 

[adrihongkong]

6 hours ago, Bassassin said:

While I have specific reservations, Chushin Gakki's a strong possibility, and that's what I expect he'd be told if he were to do the rounds of the various MIJ FB groups.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't like to be told their instrument's not what they want it to be, it seems.

I will surely edit that post, @Bassassin, if what I said was incorrect. As I said over there, I spoke to somebody at a Vintage Guitar shop in Tokyo, who does appraisals for a living, and he said he believed it had been made at Matsumoku. He said Aria used to use various different logos, and he attached this photo from a Reverb post. 

Should I assume he has no idea about what he's saying?

It's not that 'I don't like to be told my instrument's not what they want it to be', believe me. I am a professional keyboard player who has been playing bass for 2 months. I don't know anything about MIJ 70-80s basses, other than I like them. I just assumed that what I was told by a professional was more likely to be correct than what somebody I know nothing about said on a forum. Does that sound understandable? 

It's actually very simple. 

And again, I thank you very much for your help!

[Bassassin]

8 hours ago, adrihongkong said:

Should I assume he has no idea about what he's saying?

To be blunt, yes. I honestly have no idea why someone who claims to understand these instruments would say yours was made by Matsumoku. The only reason I can think of is that he is conflating the standalone Diamond brand with Aria Diamond, and then presuming that every Aria guitar was made by Matsumoku, which is demonstably not correct.

If you'll bear with me I'll try to explain - it's difficult to do without being longwinded so this might be both boring and overly detailed. Brevity is not my forte (that's probably a prog rock thing!) but I'll try to make sense. I should explain that while I might only be some nobody on a forum, I'm some nobody on a forum who's been playing MIJ instruments for 40+ years, studying them for much of that time, and for years made much of my living restoring and selling them. I have owned, played, worked on, assessed and sold multiple hundreds of these things and along the way picked up a bit of info.

My MIJ rule of thumb no.1 is, with a couple of exceptions, ignore the sticker on the end, if there is one. Most brand names have absolutely nothing to do with the manufacturer, and can be more often misleading rather than helpful. So, taking your bass as just a Japanese bass, I'll try to explain how I, and anyone else who knows these instruments, can tell that it's not a Matsumoku product. Many manufacturers had various individual traits which can make it straightforward to ID their instruments, or, like I said earlier, to be confident about what something definitely isn't!

First - the neckplate. On their 70s era copies Matsumoku used two styles of plate:

Both styles are exclusive to Matsumoku - a "Steel Adjustable" plate constitutes a 100% confirmed ID. The only Mats instruments that did not always use these styles were brands commissioned by specific distributors, for example Univox & SLM Electra, who specified their own logos and serialisation.

The plate on your bass, with its lower-half MIJ stamp is a standard style mostly associated with Fujigen Gakki but also used occasionally by several other manufacturers including Kasuga and Moridaira. Importantly, this style has never been seen on a Matsumoku instrument. If you read the quoted section in one of my earlier posts, that gives a bit of insight into how metal parts such as neckplates were sourced by various different builders.

I didn't talk about the serial on your bass earlier - as an aside, it's interesting (I have never seen that format or positioning before) but I think a red herring as far as a manufacturer ID is concerned. Looking at the irregularity of the characters compared to other serials, it appears to have been hand-stamped after the plate was manufactured.

The pickups on your bass help to exclude Matsumoku as manufacturer. On their J bass copies, Mats used a couple of distinct styles which are quite different to standard J units:

As the 70s copies were based on 60s & 70s Fenders, pickups were intended to be hidden under chrome covers, so authenticity wasn't considered that important. The earliest copies pre-date the existence of accurate J type pickups, so often manufacturers used whatever was available - it's  common to find chrome Telecaster-style units under the covers of budget basses.

Anyway, as time passed, the basses became more authentic & Matsumoku moved to using conventional J-type pickups, interchangeable with the original Fender units. The round-ended pickups like yours are common but broadly, not used by Matsumoku or Fujigen.

Identification of electronics & pickups remains one of the big grey areas in the MIJ community knowledge - Nisshin Onpa was responsible for Maxon pickups which were very widely used, and very helpful in dating pre-serial instruments as from 1971 they bear a code which defines the unit's actual day of manufacture. However there are various pickup styles, including most bass pickups, which aren't coded or branded, so beyond the overall style not much use for date or ID.

I need to explain how I know your bass is not early 70s. Simply, it's the headstock. Accurate MIJ copies of American designs started appearing around 1970 - bodies, headstocks, fretboards, the whole aesthetic, was intended to look as convincing as possible. It's entirely fair to say that no MIJ Fender copy made before mid-1977 would have a headstock like yours.

You'll have heard the term "lawsuit" bandied about in relation to these instruments. Leaving aside the fact there never was a lawsuit, the threatened legal action by Norlin, Gibson's then-parent company against Elger Hoshino, the US arm of Ibanez brand owner Hoshino Gakki Ten, was in relation to Hoshino's use of the trademarked "open book" shape on Ibanez-branded guitars. No lawsuit took place because Ibanez had stopped using that style over a year earlier, as the brand started moving away from copy instruments towards its own designs.

However a consequence of the stir caused by the legal threat was that it precipitated a general move away from copies, and other Japanese manufacturers followed suit, meaning most headstock shapes on exported instruments were modified from that point on. Matsumoku changed their Fender copies to this shape:

It's worth mentioning that Japanese home-market copies weren't modified, and while by 1979 MIJ copies in general had pretty much vanished from export ranges, they continued in their home market for decades.

As I said in my first post, I've never seen a bass the same as yours before, and while not getting a pat answer about its ID & manufacture might be frustrating, for the likes of me it's intensely fascinating. I think most of the MIJ intelligentsia elsewhere will probably conclude it's a Chushin - and they might be right - but I'm not sure. Chushin Gakki was a massive manufacturer which supplied an immense range of instruments of all levels with a countless number of brands - but their scale & significance is something that's only become obvious in the last 10 or so years. It's meant the name's become something of a catch-all for anything we can't be certain about, and realistically, that's a lot of stuff.

I'm skeptical broadly because there are lots of examples of confirmed Chushin Jazz copies which are the same standard as yours but have very different woodwork details. It makes no sense that the same factory would produce two different versions with the same appearance, spec and price point. This is part of the same logic that can be used to tentatively rule out other manufacturers whose instruments are well-recorded such as Fujigen, Moridaira, Kasuga.

I think your bass - and the related Cimars & CSLs - came from a specific factory whose traits we're as yet unsure about and whose role at the time isn't clear. The likes of Terada, Iida, Dyna, Kawai, Nagoya Suzuki & Kiso Suzuki were all active at the time and certainly on the copy bandwagon, along with numerous long-forgotten others, and of course Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai, the manufacturers' union mentioned in an earlier post, about which we still understand frustratingly little.

I've often compared understanding these instruments to a form of archaeology - there is little information about the hundreds of manufacturers that came and went during the Japanese guitar boom, a period that broadly spanned the late 50s to the late 80s, and the ones we know most about are those that were most successful at the time, and that survive today. Everything else is the result of years of piecing together scraps of what's left behind.

 

[fleabag]

What a great post.

[LukeFRC]

13 hours ago, adrihongkong said:

It's not that 'I don't like to be told my instrument's not what they want it to be', believe me. I am a professional keyboard player who has been playing bass for 2 months. I don't know anything about MIJ 70-80s basses, other than I like them. I just assumed that what I was told by a professional was more likely to be correct than what somebody I know nothing about said on a forum. Does that sound understandable? 

My mate from church has an original Hammond organ. 
He went to the professional electronics expert in town to get it serviced. He did his thing, It was ok but still not 100%. 
Then this old guy turned up at church to help the leaders for a few months. He asked to have a look at the organ, stripped it down and fixed it. It turned out he used to build them for a living, and now restoration was a hobby of his. 

The professional knew the basics and could do a decent enough job. But their expertise was in electronics generally and they would work on anything. He knew a lot about a lot, but not to a massive depth. 
The somebody we knew nothing about had one very small window of expertise and knew a massive amount, at great depth, about one make of organ.
 

[adrihongkong]

10 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

My mate from church has an original Hammond organ. 
He went to the professional electronics expert in town to get it serviced. He did his thing, It was ok but still not 100%. 
Then this old guy turned up at church to help the leaders for a few months. He asked to have a look at the organ, stripped it down and fixed it. It turned out he used to build them for a living, and now restoration was a hobby of his. 

The professional knew the basics and could do a decent enough job. But their expertise was in electronics generally and they would work on anything. He knew a lot about a lot, but not to a massive depth. 
The somebody we knew nothing about had one very small window of expertise and knew a massive amount, at great depth, about one make of organ.
 

And this is another great example of that!

[adrihongkong]

@Bassassin, Thank you so much for your post. I really appreciate the time it must have taken you to put all that information in order and to type it all out. 

What I really find fascinating is that, after such a long career repairing, selling, etc, MIJ basses, you have never seen one bass like mine.

Somebody else on FB as recently pointed in the direction of Matao basses, which (apparently) were made at the Hoshino factory and share a lot of similarities with my bass. 

What do you all think about this?

 

Bass 1:

 

Bass 2: 

 

More info on Matao guitars available here:

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/matao_guitar

Edited June 17, 2020 by adrihongkong

[Bassassin]

@adrihongkong - no problem, all that stuff is imprinted on my brain and as I might have mentioned I have an aptitude for long-windedness. With no work to do at the moment I can happily just sit and ramble/rant!

Any connection with Matao would be based upon instruments being sourced from the same manufacturer, rather than the brand itself - as the info points out, Matao was a name owned by Music West, which appears to be a chain of US music shops. This reflects the nature of the vast majority of names you find on headstocks, which is why they don't often give much information about the instruments themselves. Importers will tend to go for the best deal available, so actual manufacturers can regularly change on that basis.

Interesting that Hoshino is mentioned but they are a trading company, not a guitar manufacturer. In addition to Ibanez & Cimar, Hoshino owns the Tama brand, and the factory which produces Tama drums. For a short period in the 60s, they did manufacture guitars there but that stopped in the mid-60s, and subsequently they contracted out to other factories, notably Fujigen Gakki for Ibanez in the 70s & 80s.

It's possible - maybe probable - that Matao was imported via Hoshino, but unfortunately it's the same dead-end regarding actual manufacturer as Cimar & CSL, both of which are Hoshino-related.

Interesting to see a bass with the same headstock as yours, are there any pics of the rest of the bass?

 

[adrihongkong]

@Bassassin, in the same link I sent earlier in which Hoshino is mentioned it says that "Matao guitars were manufactured at several factories over the years, including the Hoshino factory, and the Matsumoku factory for a time". Is that information not correct?

Anyway, these are two Matao basses I've found online:

1-   https://reverb.com/ca/item/496821-1975-matao-precision-bass-copy-mij

 

A lot of similarities (Bridge, truss rod cover, tuners) but still not the same headstock shape.

 

2- https://www.tdpri.com/threads/show-your-pbass.328674/page-2. (This is the bass I mentioned on my last post)

Same headstock shape but lots of different parts in the rest of the instrument. I couldn't find a photo of the back of the bass.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Thanks!

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by adrihongkong