ID a Japanese Rick Copy

[WHUFC BASS]

Wondering if anyone can id this Japanese Rick Copy, I'm assuming it's a Matsumoko guitar but any idea of the brand?

[Geek99]

Paging @Bassassin

[Skybone]

I'd hazard a completely uneducated guess at Kasuga. 

[BassAgent]

Could be any brand from that era. Kasuga, Ibanez, Custom, Pearl, Aria, Aspen, all the same instruments.

[BigRedX]

My understanding is, that from a historical perspective, the factory that made these basses is more important than whatever logo they chose to stick on the TRC before selling them.

[madshadows]

Don't know but I love the look of it !!  

 

John 

[BassAgent]

15 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

My understanding is, that from a historical perspective, the factory that made these basses is more important than whatever logo they chose to stick on the TRC before selling them.

Correct. They didn't even put the logo on the TRC some of the time:

[Maude]

I'd say it's not from the Matsumoku factory, but I'm no expert. 

My reasoning is, it hasn't got the "Made in Japan, steel adjustable neck plate" neck plate, the bridge pickup isn't the 'staple' type, and it's very hard to see in these pictures but I can't see the little dimple markers by each control knob. 

As far as I'm aware these are all markers of a Matsumoku build, but again I'm no expert, @Bassassin is your man. 

Also I don't think Ibanez, as mentioned earlier, were ever built in the Matsumoku factory. 

[NancyJohnson]

I had a 400* copy fairly early on my musical journey, I think it might have been a Hondo II.

 

Overriding memory was there just seemed to be so little wood in the general area of the neck plate that when you got it in tune the neck pulled forward significantly.  Action at the 12 fret was around a centimetre.

 

It looked the nuts though.  King of the hill for a bit.  Part-exchanged it for a new Ibanez Roadster.  Result.

[Bassassin]

On 09/01/2025 at 22:45, Geek99 said:

Paging @Bassassin

J'arrive! Eventually...

 

On 10/01/2025 at 07:27, Skybone said:

I'd hazard a completely uneducated guess at Kasuga. 

And you'd be 100% correct!

 

On 10/01/2025 at 07:33, BassAgent said:

Could be any brand from that era. Kasuga, Ibanez, Custom, Pearl, Aria, Aspen, all the same instruments.

And you'd be 100% incorrect! Well - maybe 75%. Several brands you mention did source at least some of their instruments from Matsumoku - but the OP's bass isn't one of them. That one's a Kasuga EB-750, made by Kasuga Gakki in 1975-ish, at their own factory in Nagoya city.

 

Of the other brands, Ibanez was made exclusively by Fujigen Gakki, Custom (a local brand from the Netherlands) sold through-neck Fakers made by Matsumoku, and *possibly* Yamaki Gakki. I've not seen a Pearl-branded Faker but the sub-brand Vorg By Pearl sourced their bolt-neck Rick copies from Matsumoku. Aria & Aria Pro II all came from Mats, and the Aspen in the pic has Grover copy tuners, which only appear on Matsumoku Fakers.

 

Just to bang on a bit more, aside from the factories mentioned, both Chushin Gakki & Kiso Suzuki made their own versions, and it looks highly probable that the 70s manufacturers' co-op Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai may have had both through & bolt-neck examples. On top of that, there are a slew of MIJ Rick copies that don't come from any of the aforementioned sources (there are always detail differences) so must have come from Moridaira, Kawai Gakki, Terada Gakki, Iida Gakki, Daina and so on and so on. And that's without taking into account 70s & 80s Fakers from Korea, Italy, Brazil, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and even right here in the U of K!

[BassAgent]

I stand corrected! However: Custom was not (AFAIK) a Dutch brand, right? Also there was Gerrinez: Ibanez (Fujigen) basses imported by Gerritsen from The Hague. 

[Bassassin]

10 minutes ago, BassAgent said:

I stand corrected! However: Custom was not (AFAIK) a Dutch brand, right? Also there was Gerrinez: Ibanez (Fujigen) basses imported by Gerritsen from The Hague. 

 

Custom's a weird one - first time I saw one was a 70s LP Special copy which turned up in Edinburgh, maybe 15 years ago. After doing a lot of digging, they mostly seemed to be in Holland, Germany - or here in Central Scotland, although mostly in Holland. I post on a number of MIJ-related FB groups (no surprise!) and someone fairly recently connected Custom to a particular retailer in the Netherlands. Hopefully I have a note somewhere, if not I may have to trawl through several years worth of posts! I think the Scottish connection may well have been Grant Music in Glasgow & Edinburgh, run by the highly entrepreneurial Jimmy Grant in the 70s & 80s - they had their own Grant & Grantson brands, which had full UK distribution, and imported/distributed various instruments. So I wonder if Grants may have re-imported surplus Custom instruments from the brand's owners, or something like that.

 

Gerritsen/Gerrinez came up years ago on the old Ibanez Collectors World forum - seems they weren't Fujigen, or anything like Ibanez quality - according to Dutch posters, the name was just an attempt to make an association. The same thing happened with brands like 'Isonez' & 'IBZ' - both nothing to do with Ibanez!

[Geek99]

We’ve still not answered the question… the most important question! 
 

what does it sound like and moreover, is it any good for metal ? 

[itu]

That was the second most important. I would love to see a book written by @Bassassin about basses.

[WHUFC BASS]

Thanks @Bassassin for the detailed response and to everyone who contributed. Are these rare ?

 

I actually won this on eBay for not too much money. When it turns up I'll do a video with a description on how it plays and sounds

Edited Sunday at 12:27 by WHUFC BASS

[Geek99]

Don’t forget “the question” in your presentation 🧐

[BigRedX]

19 hours ago, Bassassin said:

And that's without taking into account 70s & 80s Fakers from Korea, Italy, Brazil, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and even right here in the U of K!

 

Who was making fakers in the UK other than John Birch? IMO they are only fakers in very loosest sense of the word since only the rough body shape and occasionally the headstock were anything like a Rickenbacker.

[Geek99]

If you don’t mind, could you tell me roughly what you paid this quite nice thing?

[AndyTravis]

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

 

Who was making fakers in the UK other than John Birch? IMO they are only fakers in very loosest sense of the word since only the rough body shape and occasionally the headstock were anything like a Rickenbacker.

Gordon Smith did some - one cropped up a while ago here. It had a jazz pickup added near the bridge - the stock pickups were sort of “Strat” shaped…

[WHUFC BASS]

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

If you don’t mind, could you tell me roughly what you paid this quite nice thing?

 

£470 plus postage. I've actually never really liked Rickenbacker bass aesthetics and the eccentric bridge and awkward pickup cover but I've always loved the sound of them. A real Rick is just way out of my price range so I've never really coveted one but the other night I was on ebay and saw this and decided to put in a BID. Alcohol may have been involved in this but I always think that's the best time to buy something 😂

[prowla]

1 hour ago, AndyTravis said:

Gordon Smith did some - one cropped up a while ago here. It had a jazz pickup added near the bridge - the stock pickups were sort of “Strat” shaped…

I think Gordon Smith did some work on my 1964 RM1999 real Ric, back in the day.

[prowla]

20 minutes ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

£470 plus postage. I've actually never really liked Rickenbacker bass aesthetics and the eccentric bridge and awkward pickup cover but I've always loved the sound of them. A real Rick is just way out of my price range so I've never really coveted one but the other night I was on ebay and saw this and decided to put in a BID. Alcohol may have been involved in this but I always think that's the best time to buy something 😂

That's about right for a bolt-on faker.

[prowla]

On 10/01/2025 at 09:11, BassAgent said:

Correct. They didn't even put the logo on the TRC some of the time:

 

That one's a Matsumoku; I had a similar CMI bolt-on some time back (it had dual rods).

 

[Bassassin]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Who was making fakers in the UK other than John Birch? IMO they are only fakers in very loosest sense of the word since only the rough body shape and occasionally the headstock were anything like a Rickenbacker.

 

2 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

Gordon Smith did some - one cropped up a while ago here. It had a jazz pickup added near the bridge - the stock pickups were sort of “Strat” shaped…

 

That's probably this very one, then!

 

Also have an idea that Jim Lea played a shortscale Faker made by JayDee, although that was probably a one-off.

 

John Birch's Fakers were enough of an irritant & an infringement that they got a C&D off Big Johnny Hall, back when Big Johnny Hall was stomping around chucking out legal threats left right & centre. Also, I seem to remember the Rick type actually having 4001 as its catalogue model number! I think they deserve to be on the list.

 

Unfortunately I'm far too mentally disorganised to write a book about MIJ basses - there are several reasons, the main one being there's not enough definitive info to fill more than a short pamphlet, and half of that will have been revised by the time it got to print. I am also a sufficiently undisciplined writer that I fear there would be a tendency to veer away from a detailed comparison of typical through-neck constructions across three separate manufacturers, into a twisted hellscape of eldritch horror pornography where the shrieks of the damned and doomed echo across an apocalptic wasteland of blackened, creeping, undead flesh, beneath a leaden, burning sky as a baleful and bloody moon rises. Although that might serve to broaden any potential readership demographic.

 

And yes, @WHUFC BASS - they are pretty rare. I've had one for nearly 20 years & I think I've only seen 2 or 3 (including yours) come up since. I do need to get some new pics of it.

[AndyTravis]

@Bassassin I do wonder where that one got to…

 

I know there aren’t many; I saw one in Manchester A1 Music in about 1998 and wanted one ever since. That didn’t - as far as I’m aware, have the added pickup.