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Thirty years ago Wal would do you a new bass for about £1100-£1200 if you went to the workshop with cash. You could get a decent used MK1 Custom for about £600, maybe a bit less if you were lucky. A new Status Series 1 or Series 2 cost a few hundred quid more than a new Wal. At that time Wal and Jaydee were considered a bit old-hat compared to newer Warwicks ect.

Isn't it! I remember first seeing it on Raw Power / Noisy Mothers the late night ITV rock music program when I was..well.. younger!!

...or the tank like build quality... The new Trace amps are really Peavey, a company who I may never trust after this which possibly explains the title to this thread (a lost art!):

I know this thread is from a while back, but just in case anyone’s still interested, here’s the finished bass - looking and sounding great! 😉 I asked a friend to check it over with a one minute demo. Antoria.mp4

I might try this next week...

There's actually a precise formula: Too many = how many you have now + 2 That means there's always room for one more...

I passed up a Wal for £250 in Cash Converters back in the mid-90s. It was a Mk1 with the V-shaped neck carve and it felt horrible in my hands. Would probably be worth a fortune now though. It was pretty much entirely because of Justin Chancellor of Tool that Wal got their second wind. After Aenima came out in 1996, you never saw a cheap Wal again. And now they regularly go for five-figure sums used and have a six-year waiting list if you want a new one.

I use the resale value as a metric to judge how much money I could get back. If you ever want or need to sell a bass, they worth what you can get for them and what you get for them may well dictate what you can get to replace them. I remember well when Wal basses were less valuable than today, but then again now they are grotesquely overvalued. They, and Status and JD, never super cheap in relation to other comparable basses, just relatively less overpriced than now. Plenty of those basses you are mention are very attractive, no question, but I just can't see me handing over cash for most of them.

Yup - it would be where that orange wire runs from the switch to the bottom-right (in the picture) pot, between the green sleeves to the two tone caps. So, you’re not going to get the Chris Squire sound.

In the sixties the MM was the go-to music paper. NME just wasn’t in it. In the seventies I used to read Motoring News.

I have no great insight. It appears to be in the lap of the gods, more often than not. In any event, you always play your best and treat every gig the same. A guy I know played Woodstock and treated every gig with the same mentality.

Saxophones - Jimmy Buffett

I've had a HW 4005 for about 6 years (in my profile picture), bought secondhand but only a year old. I don't know how long Harry has been making them, and whether he hadn't mastered finishing then, but the paint finish wasn't great. It's a mapleglo and the clearcoat was very orange peely. It wasn't horrendous and the previous owner was happy with/hadn't noticed it, but it bothered me. I flatted and polished it and it was fine then. Everything else is fantastic, the woodwork and attention to detail is exceptional, checker binding, crushed pearl inlays, the fretboard colour, everything, perfect. I've seen many other finishes of his which are great so maybe mine was a bad day, who knows. It was my main gigging bass in my Mod/Northern Soul/Ska band, which has now folded but I can't see me selling it any time soon. It's a beautiful bass and after a couple of little changes to suit me better it's a one off.

Yakety Sax - Boots Randolph edit: with added Chet Atkins:

Acid test over what time period? go back a few years and that range of 80s custom basses, Wals and JD and statii etc were super cheap secondhand cos they weren’t fashionable. but we digress - your statement a load of posts back was “I don't see any of the newer makers as offering worthwhile alternatives to what those established brands offered.” - I suggest at least some of the makers I listed make exciting and interesting instruments that are worthwhile. I also dont think I would use resale value as a main metric to judge the worthwhile ness or quality of an instrument.

Just got this EBMM Stingray Special - Aqua sparkle.

In terms of custom instruments, that's not usually the case - people like to pick their own choice of woods, hardware, pickups, neck dimensions, number of strings, fretted/fretless, etc and the chances of selling it on the used market mostly rely on someone else who's in the market for that sort of instrument having the same taste as you, and not wanting to deal with the lead time or additional expense of ordering their own. Almost all basses, possibly with the exception of Wals and old Fenders, depreciate like used cars. Anyway, you buy a bass to play it, not as an investment. Then again, you're supposed to buy a house to live in it, and I suppose that doesn't stop people looking on them as investments...

Such a great track.