Over 50s club (basses)

[la bam]

With time flying, how about a thread / club for all those basses (not bassists) who have reached or surpassed the grand age of 50. 

 

Would be interesting to see what's out there, what condition, what stories, history etc. 

[la bam]

I'll start with my 1972 Kay 20 b. 

 

All original, all works, sounds great. 

 

Nice finish and feel. Looks lovely. 

 

Bits I like:

 

1. The fact each pickup has an on/off/mix switch, a volume and a tone. 

 

2. The little pointers under the numbered knobs. Makes it super easy to dial in what you want. 

 

3. It has character. Nice finish and feels more handmade than a like a modern cnc'd piece of wood. 

 

Edit: the headstock photo was taken before I did some work on it - previous owner had strung it all wrong!! 

 

 

Edited November 1 by la bam

[Lozz196]

Great idea, sadly I can’t contribute re basses, none of mine anywhere near that age - did used to have one of those Kay Rickytypers though.

[Beedster]

51 this year 👍

 

[BassAgent]

1966, 1971, 1970:

 

[chris_b]

My 1968 Fender Precision, bought new by me in March 1969, seriously modded in 1986 and finally put in its case in 1996 when I switched to 5 string basses. 

 

[neepheid]

See you in 4 years - my oldest bass is my 1978 Yamaha BB1200...

[Reggaebass]

53 years old 

[bigthumb]

Scraping in at 50 years old. 

[GuyR]

All Jazz basses.

Youngest is 58 years old dots/bound/lollipops which I am quite enjoying.
Acquired via these hallowed pages from the long term ownership of the lovely McKendrick, very sadly no longer with us.

 

Edited November 2 by GuyR

[BlueMoon]

My early 70’s Fender basses: ‘71 Jazz and ‘73 Fretless P

[la bam]

Some beauties here. Great to see they're still lasting the test of time. 

[cybertect]

The same age as me, this is my 1967 Hofner Verithin

I bought it in 1988 from a friend who had replaced the tuners with some Schallers; everything else is original.
 

For the band I was in then, I took great advantage of its ability to feed back to create some terrifying drones when crouched in front of the Sessionette 100 I was using at the time. 😎
 

For the last few years I have kept it strung with D’Addario Chromes. It still comes out to play every once in a while.

 

Edited November 3 by cybertect

[JazzyJ]

August '65 P. Gigged a few times when I bought it 15yrs ago.

Now strung with TI Flats and lives in the original case. This one is going nowhere 🙂 .

 

[Reggaebass]

8 hours ago, JazzyJ said:

August '65 P. Gigged a few times when I bought it 15yrs ago.

Now strung with TI Flats and lives in the original case. This one is going nowhere 🙂 .

 

Oh my, that’s a beauty 

[basshead56]

My 73 Precision creeps in.

Though the pickup is long gone, replaced with a dimarzio 60's.

[bassbiscuits]

Here’s my old lady. 54 years and counting. Bought it 30 years ago from Musical Exchanges in Coventry, which involved part-exing my only bass, a Charvel 1B. 
 

I was in university at the time and this has been everywhere with me over the last 30 years. For a very long time it was my only bass and as such helped to shape the way I play. 
 

It’s on its third set of frets, second nut, and has had the usual maintenance visits to the local luthier from time to time, but the rest is all original and it’s light as a feather and a pleasure to play. 
 

Edited November 4 by bassbiscuits

[Burns-bass]

1966 and all original. Used at all my electric gigs so that’s 40 or so a year.

[casapete]

Here’s my Precision , 61 years old and mine for nearly the last 40. 
Refinished in the late 80’s by Paul McNab (Paulman guitars of Huddersfield).

 

 

 

[Burns-bass]

It’s reassuring to see a lot of long term owned basses here. I’m not saying you can’t instantly have a connection but (without wishing to romanticise too much) you do build a relationship with an instrument over years.

[casapete]

13 hours ago, casapete said:

Here’s my Precision , 61 years old and mine for nearly the last 40. 
Refinished in the late 80’s by Paul McNab (Paulman guitars of Huddersfield).

 

 

 

For anyone interested, here’s a picture of my 63 Precision in the hands of its previous owner!
Jeff Ramsdale was originally in Hull band ‘Roger Bloom’s Hammer’, who had a good go at breaking into 

the big time. They were signed to CBS and supported quite a few famous bands in the late 60’s including 

T.Rex. When Roger departed they carried on as ‘The Hammer’, and as well as Jeff they had Rod Temperton

in the band of Heatwave / Quincy Jones /Michael Jackson fame. 
When The Hammer broke up, Jeff carried on playing, and the picture below is him with my bass playing

at The Hofbrauhouse in Hull, probably in the late 70’s. By then someone had made a strange scratchplate

for the bass which you can see. I played in a couple of bands with Jeff after this and the bass was refinished

in a sort of mustard yellow by Rokas in London. Sadly Jeff died in a tragic car accident, and I was contacted

by his family a year or two later to see if I wanted to buy his bass . When I went round to see it, it wasn’t in

a good state after being kept in a loft for a while. After acquiring it I had it refinished to natural, and Paul

did a great job of making the horrible holes from the previous scratchplate look like knots in the wood.

Fortunately the original plate was still intact, and that’s how it’s remained for nearly 40 years. It’s a lovely

bass, not heavy and sounds like a good P.bass should - will remain with me till I’ve departed. 
 

 

 

[Aunty]

My contribution - a ‘73 Mustang, all original and the same age as me (not all original 😂). Bought via Andy Baxter and I’m sure I’ll spend many hours wondering where it’s been during its life, before it came to me.

[Pow_22]

On 04/11/2024 at 20:51, bassbiscuits said:

Here’s my old lady. 54 years and counting. Bought it 30 years ago from Musical Exchanges in Coventry, which involved part-exing my only bass, a Charvel 1B. 
 

I was in university at the time and this has been everywhere with me over the last 30 years. For a very long time it was my only bass and as such helped to shape the way I play. 
 

It’s on its third set of frets, second nut, and has had the usual maintenance visits to the local luthier from time to time, but the rest is all original and it’s light as a feather and a pleasure to play. 
 

That is stunning!

[police squad]

I cant post either of mine as the files are too big and I dont know how to make them smaller

'73 Pbass and '64 Hofner 500/1 (there's also a '67 SG Junior, late 50s Hofner Commitee acoustic too)

Edited November 7 by police squad

[rushbo]

I picked up a slightly tatty, but generally intact Eros Mark II a few years ago, with a view to replacing pretty much everything except the body and neck. However, once I'd scraped off the filth and given it a very quick set-up, it seemed to play quite nicely. Pots were very scratchy and it had the weirdest fret buzz I had ever heard - a sort of fretless "mwah" noise, but just on three frets of the "D"  string.  A turn of the bridge height screw and bobs-yer-proverbial. A quick squirt of switch cleaner, followed by the dreary task of putting the thing back together (seriously... trying to put the pots back into a semi-acoustic is like trying to perform gynaecology through a letterbox) and it sounded way better than it has a right to. It took quite a bit of cleaning and there were some nasty, but shallow scratches to deal with. Out came the rubbing compound and some elbow grease and it looks the business. Well, I think so.

 

These things are hard to date, but the venerable Bassassassin reckons it's "early seventies" so that's good enough for me.