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Peak Wal?


W1_Pro

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I popped into the Gallery today to collect a bass that was having a new scratch place fitted. Whilst I was there I noted no less than eight Wal basses (all four string, Mark ones or Pro Basses, fretted and fretless). The ticket prices ranged from a breathtaking £5900 to a very breathtaking £14K odd (although I imagine that last one once belonged to someone famous). 

I have never seen anything near this number of Wal's anywhere, ever.  Which leads me to my question, have we finally reached peak pricing for these doubtlessly wonderful basses ?

Discuss.....

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Would not surprise me. Lots of premium objets soared in price during lockdown and have been falling back towards earth in the past year. Check out the second hand market for Rolex watches, for example, which has dived by well over 10%. Pedigree dog breed prices too. And as we can see on BassChat, throw in the CoL crisis on top and the market for buying and selling quality basses is well and truly frozen.

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Times are tough financially for a lot of people.

 

If I owned a 6k bass it would be the first thing to go if I needed quick cash.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's great to have really nice stuff, but a high end bass can be adequately replaced with something that costs a fraction of the price and the rest of the money can go to tackling whatever emergency has cropped up.

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Just my two’penneth but I also think they are quite niche. Probably on the aspirational list for many of us, and then sold on when you realise you have a £10k+ bass but you only play covers on the local bar circuit. Not just Wal’s mind, loads of other high end basses appear to suffer the same fate.

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The pricing makes no sense. And I know, I know, the market etc etc, but there was a '65 P bass there today that was lovely, and cheaper than all of the Wals. They (Wal's) are fantastic basses and I'd love one, but price wise at lease, if the south sea bubble was a bass, it would be a Wal.

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Wal are not the only bubble....

 

Yesterday Facebook marketplace showed me a well worn 1980 fender jazz with a broken pickups... fella wanted £2k
And then a 1978 precision for £2.8k 

this is the era of Fender that's seen as the worst in it's production life! it's mad. 

 

 

It's like a form of long covid where bass players will pay silly money for old fenders, Wals, 3leaf pedals... 

while at the same time from what I understand there's a glut of new gear in the market as they over produced during the covid period. 

 

 

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I noticed these as well during a visit to the Gallery a couple of weeks ago. At least half of the Wals they had in stock seemed to be fretless basses with a single bridge pickup. The fretted versions with two pickups were considerably more expensive.

 

As in-demand as Wals are, I'd imagine the single pickup fretlesses are a considerably harder sell than the two pickup, fretted basses with the filter electronics (this may be unfair but I'd guess that the demand for Wals is driven a great deal more by Justin Chancellor, Flea and Geddy tones than any others) - and as much as I love the shop, they charge considerably more than other UK dealers and don't seem to mind stuff hanging around for years before it's sold (or quietly withdrawn) - every time I visit they seem to more and more stuff and less space.

 

I'd love a fretless single pickup Wal but I wouldn't pay more than £3000 for it - and I'm well aware that to a lot of people that would still be silly money.

Edited by Belka
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Can I just broaden that sample out to two. I have played three Wals over the years and all three were as @Burns-bass described...

 

2 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

...heavy, strange and awkward to play.

 

...I lusted after a Wal until I played one, then I realised it was simply because I was so into Mick Karn and, as we all know, the instrument is not the talent.

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4 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

They’re very much a handmade boutique item. Personally I found mine heavy, strange and awkward to play. Personally I don’t see what all the fuss is, but I’m a sample size of 1. 

Me too. One of my least favourite basses ever. Immense preamp and pickups tho!

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Lots of basses, both new and "vintage"" are overpriced in the current market. Wal basses are a prime example, but  I think 1970's Fenders are also ridiculously expensive considering what someone is actually getting for the money. 

 

Partly it's a generational thing. If you weren't playing bass in the late '70s into the late '80s then certain instruments can hold a certain mystique. That's because of famous players who use(d) them and romantic associations we make with that music. 

 

If you were immersed in all things bass back in those days then there's much more chance that you have experience of the mundane reality of those"classic" instruments. Yes, they had certain strengths but they also had potential drawbacks and pitfalls.  Allowing for inflation, they were also proportionately much less expensive.

 

£6000+ for a used Wal Custom is a bit ridiculous to me, but it's more understandable than  £2000 -£3000 for a late '70's Fender in so much as Wal basses have a unique tone.  By comparison, those Fenders have neither an otherwise unattainable sound or substantial build quality. If you want a Fender-style bass you can do better elsewhere. 

 

Whether used Wal prices have peaked, I doubt,. That's because there's a buoyant market for them fuelled by influential big-name players, limited supply of new instruments and big demand particularly from the USA. A strong dollar means that UK-based Wal basses up for sale are appealing to American buyers.

 

 

Edited by Misdee
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These prices are wild! Back in 2008 I paid 1200 GBP for a 1983 Mk 1 with flamed shedua facings and original case. It was a factory fretless that had later been fretted. That was roughly €1500 at the exchange rate of that time. 

 

The seller backed out after some trouble at the post office, which he saw as a sign that he wasn't meant to sell it. It's 15 years ago but I still think about it sometimes and recently came across the pictures of that bass when I was clearing out my old Photobucket account :(. I think the seller did well though, as even at that time that price was low. It was advertised on Yahoo and fairly hard to find, which leads me to think the seller wasn't very internet-savvy at the time and would have done himself short selling it at that price.

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The thing about second prices for Wals is that you can have the bass the moment that you had over the money.

 

Right now, due to the backlog, you can't order a new Wal, and even if you could you'd be looking at a wait time of 4 years for yours to be completed.

 

However, since the basses at The Gallery are currently unsold, it would suggest that they have been priced too high. A true indication of what a Wal bass is worth would be to look at what second hand example have actually sold for over the last year.

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They are a very dated bass.  I get that people have memories of 80s bands playing Wals but to younger generations they are entirely antiquated.  See also - Status

Edited by acidbass
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15 minutes ago, edstraker123 said:

Think I'd rather give half of that kind of money to ACG , Shuker or Alpher and have an absolute masterpiece made to my own specification. I guess a lot of the appeal of a Wal is to be seen to be playing one

 

While those other luthiers will be able to make you a very nice instrument, none of them (with the possible exception of an ACG with the appropriate pickups and filter pre-amp) will get you close to the sounds of a Wal.

 

Once you step outside of the Precision and Jazz bass market, one luthier/manufacture's basses are not a substitute for another's, and if you think they are you would probably be best off with a Squier.

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There is currently a four year wait on a new Wal, so the market for new basses can't be too bad.  In fact, they aren't even taking orders at the moment.

 

I'm just looking at the Gallery website now and the three single pickup fretless basses are all from the "budget" (i.e. semi production line) run that Wal did.  They aren't even active, so £7-8k for one of those seems truly exorbitant to me.

 

I guess they are hoping people will buy a bass that was made while Wal and Pete were still alive.

 

Edited by franzbassist
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12 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

While those other luthiers will be able to make you a very nice instrument, none of them (with the possible exception of an ACG with the appropriate pickups and filter pre-amp) will get you close to the sounds of a Wal.

 

 


Which maybe a good thing if I don't actually want the sound of a Wal.😃

 

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