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If you listen to The Young Marble Giants you can hear a Hayman 40/40 as this was the only bass used on the early stuff there's even a track named in homage to the instrument.

I've been in touch as Im a bit of a Shergold/Hayman fan - I was offered one recently but it had been messed about with and defretted. These are nice instruments.

If you can't find anything UK made Schaller are the obvious European choice

Here's my Custom Masquerader with string trees as a comparison, mine's pretty beaten up but still plays and sounds well.....for a guitar that is!

I just bought one of these for less than a secondhand MIM Jazz has anyone any thoughts about them? I know they are designed by Gary Levinson but are a cheaper version of his Jazz model.

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1377386859' post='2187066'] I can't believe there were only 4 made. I had one and Andy Pask from Landscape reviewed one in Musicians Only Mag (I think..) back in the day. I converted mine to long scale and added a Gotoh soapbar humbucker at the bridge. Sold it to guy who came up from Bristol. Quite a sweet sounding bass. [/quote] The information came from the original owner who had it from new and the Shergold forum. There was a thread about the numbers of production model Shergold Marathon 6 strings made and co founder Norman Houlder reckoned around 100. The fretless version was made as a very small run and few have survived in their original fretless form. I can see why they were converted to fretted instruments as intonation is very difficult on a shortscale fretless instrument when playing chords! There are quite a few post production basses made up from 'new old' factory stock in existence. In all honesty I was going to have mine converted to a fretted but was dissuaded as it is such a rare thing. There is a scan of the Andy Pask review on the Shergold site here - http://www.shergold.co.uk/archive.html#2d25ff7705f2ae29a3018064a9f6e4ca

This is my Shergold fretless 6 String Marathon apparently one of only four ever made two of which are now fretted!

I decided to give this a good clean and set up - I took the neck off and found the original matching serial sticker in the neck pocket. Amongst the usual Fender stamps I also found this signature on the neck heel in marker pen......

I've owned both Squier and Fender versions and also the shorter scale Fender version. They have excellent necks - very like a Tele bass and I suspect some may have been rebadged by naughty people as Fender Tele necks as they are so nice. The Squiers were SQ era - 1984ish. Very lightweight and good to play. The pickups weren't too hot being a Mustang-type with only one pole piece per string. A nice bass if you can get one they tend to go for £250 for the Squiers and a bit more for the US version.

I bought a set of vintage tuners off Martyn, great communication, quick delivery and nice tuners. Cheers!

[quote name='police squad' timestamp='1376284313' post='2171626'] Nice, here's a picture of mine. It's a Japan only model [/quote] That's a nice bass, I remember seeing Sting play his at a Rock Goes to College gig I just thought the plain maple board looked so cool. Thanks for the tips I've put it outside for a while and now its inside I put silica gel and some wood shavings in it to see if that helps. The neck on the bass is gorgeous, virtually unmarked I also love the flexibility of having a separate tone and volume control on each pickup.

They go for £300 - £400 mark - as you point out they aren't as sought after despite being of a similar quality and as playable as any JV. Collectors prefer the JVs as they were based on the original Fender vintage blueprints, the SQs are more of a 'mash up' of models e.g. 70's style tuners, solid barrel saddles, skunk stripe, etc. I'd keep it I'm sure it's value as an instrument outweighs its monetary worth.

Looks like a hybrid of US 70's and 90's MIM. The silver decal could also suggest 80's US as there was a period where the truss rod access was up top. Hmmm.....interesting.

I picked this up last week in a private sale. It's all original with the exception of an extra Dimarzio Jazz pickup and the pots and switch for this. It needed some work to clean it as it looked like it had been kept in a shed for a few years or the ubiquitous 'uncle's loft'! The original case was included too - but this smells a bit like its got damp and dried out - any tips on how to get rid of that smell by the way? The neck is beautiful and neck joint & bridge alignment is good. It is pretty heavy compared to my '74 Precision. I'm pleased with it though and plan to set it up properly with flats. Anybody else got a maple neck fretless?