Shaftesbury Bass Second Try

[sirmontofgue]

Guys,

My earlier topic on Shaftesbury seems to have frozen up and I can't access it...perhaps its cos I mentioned the R*******ker word...so here goes for the second attempt.

Wonder if you knowledgable people can help with some more info/history on early Shaftesbury R*******ker bass copies?

Let me start with a romantic tale...when I was a slip of a lad and learning to play drums, I also fancied learning bass and a mate of mine offered to sell me his Shaftesbury copy for £50. As this was about 1977 it was an awful lot of money, but I asked him if he'd do installments, but he wanted the money now and I watched him sell the beautiful red guitar to another friend who subsequently got bored and...GAVE IT AWAY...to someone else....arrrrrggghhhh! Having played it and in later years played the real thing, I really couldn't remember much difference & I hankered after one for many years. Now for the happy ending...I recently bought one, including the original case, for £300 and boy is it money well spent as it plays like a dream and as a real one is about 5x as much I consider it a bargain! However, how do you age these things as the guy I bought it off reckons its a 1978? Anymore info/thoughts on these wonderful guitars would be most appreciated.

Ta...a very happy ending geezer!

[attachment=35213:P1020638.jpg][attachment=35214:P1020639.jpg][attachment=35215:P1020640.jpg][attach
ment=35216:P1020641.jpg][attachment=35217:P1020643.jpg]

[Musky]

I'm really not sure there's anything that can be added beyond what was in Jon's post. Although he's far too modest to mention it, he's one of the most (the most?) knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to Rickenfakers.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='Musky' post='637757' date='Oct 27 2009, 11:40 AM']I'm really not sure there's anything that can be added beyond what was in Jon's post. Although he's far too modest to mention it, he's one of the most (the most?) knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to Rickenfakers.[/quote]

Yep. They're quite scared of him over on the Ric forum. I hear John Hall's been thinking about a Black-Ops wet job.

[Bassassin]

"With great power...." etc.

Fact is, I'm on their side, and the RickResource folks know it. [i]Obersturmbannführer [/i]Hall isn't so sure, though.

Regarding the Shaftesbury, I really don't know which Japanese factory made these, and I'll try & explain as comprehensively as possible. Since Shaftesbury is a brand name owned by a British importer, it doesn't actually provide many clues to the manufacturer, since with very few exceptions, importers would source instruments from whatever Japanese manufacturer/exporter gave the best deal at the time. What this means is that instruments from various sources were sold with the same brand name, model number & at the same price.

So in order to identify what factory made a particular "off brand" instrument, like your Shaftesbury, we need to find an identical bass which is either under a factory's own brand, or from an importer who only sourced from one known factory. So far I've not done this with Shaftesbury - and neither has anyone else in the tiny online community of Jap guitar obsessives!

There are a couple of small clues but so far they're not conclusive at all. The main identifying feature on your bass which doesn't appear on any positively ID'd Rick copy is the tuners. All Shaftesbury Rick copies have the same closed-back, cast button medium-size tuners that yours has. These are very common on many MIJ basses throughout the 70s & early 80s, but appear on only a handful of Rickalikes. Two of these brands, Cimar & El Maya, are interesting but don't give us a concrete answer.

Cimar, first of all, was associated with Hoshino Gakki, the trading company which owns the Ibanez brand, and was later marketed as a sub-brand of Ibanez. However 70s copy-era Cimars didn't come from the same factory which built Ibanez - and we don't yet know where they did come from. Anyway [url="http://www.ibanez.co.jp/anniversary/14/7.jpg"]here's Cimar's Rickencopy[/url].

El Maya's potentially more helpful - this brand was owned by a trading company called Rokkomann, based in Kobe. Anecdotally, Rokkomann owned its own factory, which was apparently destroyed in the Hanshin earthquake in 1995. It's often assumed then, that El Maya & Maya branded instruments were built in Rokkomann's own factory, but this is unverified. [url="http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs/thumb_1976elmaya.jpg"]This is the only example of a Maya/El Maya copy with these tuners[/url] - others are different, but more common.

These basses appear to be similar but neither is identical to your Shafty.

To complicate this even more, there are at least two distinctly different but unidentified MIJ Rickenbacker copies which were fitted with these tuners. I've owned two - the fireglo one in my avatar, and a highly-modified (read ruined) parts donor bass, which would have originally looked similar, but had completely different dimensions & construction, and probably hardware & finish too.

There are numerous problems with this sort of JapCrap detective-work. In the early/mid 70s, the Japanese guitar industry was both in its infancy and booming, there were dozens of different factories we know about, and any number of ones we don't, all jumping on the highly lucrative copy bandwagon, many of them not even from a musical instrument manufacturing background. Matsumoku, for example, was a traditional Japanese cabinet maker, whose main business was building sewing machine cabinets.

Very few records were kept of manufacture, imports or exports, and most of the factories are long-gone and pretty much forgotten. There are very few instruments left, in real terms - older players will remember that at the time Japanese copies were regarded as cheap, low quality, disposable junk and were treated as such. Most of the catalogues & brochures were thrown out decades ago. All that's left is what we have in our hands. You will find clues on the web but very few answers - it's easy to jump to any number of wrong conclusions, so it's easy to be an "expert" on the internet.

Me - I know sod-all & I'm happy to admit it.

Anyway you have a Shaftesbury Rick copy & I don't - so a few questions:

Is the fingerboard lacquered or bare wood?
Are the inlays real Mother Of Pearl, plastic pearloid or plain silver/grey plastic?
Does the red part of the fireglo go all around the edges of the body or are there uncoloured parts?
Does the truss rod adjuster have an allen key or a brass hex nut?
Are the body wings single pieces of wood or a "sandwich" split around the edges?

Jon.

[sirmontofgue]

Jon,

Thanks for all the answers so far. I've been a bit busy lately, but here are the answer to your questions:

Is the fingerboard lacquered or bare wood? Yes
Are the inlays real Mother Of Pearl, plastic pearloid or plain silver/grey plastic? Plastic pearloid I reckon
Does the red part of the fireglo go all around the edges of the body or are there uncoloured parts? All round the body
Does the truss rod adjuster have an allen key or a brass hex nut? Brass hex nut
Are the body wings single pieces of wood or a "sandwich" split around the edges? Sandwich split

Hope this helps

[bumnote]

That looks remarkably like the Kimbara bass I bought from Andertons in the 70s although mine was maple same case as well

[Bassassin]

[quote name='sirmontofgue' post='643934' date='Nov 2 2009, 10:10 PM']Jon,

Thanks for all the answers so far. I've been a bit busy lately, but here are the answer to your questions:

Is the fingerboard lacquered or bare wood? Yes
Are the inlays real Mother Of Pearl, plastic pearloid or plain silver/grey plastic? Plastic pearloid I reckon
Does the red part of the fireglo go all around the edges of the body or are there uncoloured parts? All round the body
Does the truss rod adjuster have an allen key or a brass hex nut? Brass hex nut
Are the body wings single pieces of wood or a "sandwich" split around the edges? Sandwich split

Hope this helps[/quote]

Very helpful info, thanks! I can now conclude that the bass I had as a parts donor was originally a Shaftesbury, or at least from the same factory. It had sandwich body construction & a hex nut truss adjuster - the other things I can't be sure about because of the "modifications" but these are enough to be 99% sure it was the same as yours.

Bumnote - your Kimbara was probably a Matsumoku, identical to the one on the left in my avatar. I found a scan of a Kimbara Rick copy review from International Musician mag, quite hard to read & I don't think it's the entire article, but interesting anyway:

[attachment=35642:Kimbara_...ew_IM_RW.jpg]

J.

[bumnote]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='643977' date='Nov 2 2009, 10:53 PM']Bumnote - your Kimbara was probably a Matsumoku, identical to the one on the left in my avatar. I found a scan of a Kimbara Rick copy review from International Musician mag, quite hard to read & I don't think it's the entire article, but interesting anyway:

[attachment=35642:Kimbara_...ew_IM_RW.jpg]

J.[/quote]
Thanks for that, Thats the first review Ive seen, and although I know a couple of peple who also bought them at the time, ive havent seen one, or one advertised on flea bay for years.

Interesting comment about the standard of finish excluding the fretting, I dont remember poor finish on the rickenbackers Ive seen although no doubt there have been some. I do remember doing an a to b with a real ricky [which was about £375 at the time and thinking how well the japanese copy stood up.

I never foung it very comfortable to play, [or the genuine 4003 I bought some years later] but i could be tempted if I ever see one again

[sirmontofgue]

Jon,

Thanks for all your help...

With the knowledge you've gleaned and the photos have you got any other info on the bass, and was it worth the £300?

[Bassassin]

[quote name='sirmontofgue' post='644396' date='Nov 3 2009, 02:09 PM']Jon,

Thanks for all your help...

With the knowledge you've gleaned and the photos have you got any other info on the bass, and was it worth the £300?[/quote]

I think this is the same bass as yours, only black & with a different brand name:

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1970s-Ricky-classic-4001-Bass-Guitar-by-CMI-70s_W0QQitemZ260497210507"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1970s-Ricky-classic-...emZ260497210507[/url]

So yes - £300 is a pretty good deal, IMO, and to be honest Rick copies - even the cheapo bolt-neck plywood ones, seldom sell for less.

No more concrete info about Shaftesbury copies, I'm afraid, but from your info I now know that the sunburst copy in my avatar wasn't a Shafty. No idea what it was though!

J.