lemmywinks

It has the hex key pole pieces, I checked that before I bought it as a bit of insurance just in case the rest of the bass was junk. The bridge is starting to bow a little but given the age it doesn't look too serious.

Plugged it in and it sounds brilliant, bought it with the intention of flipping it on eBay for a profit but want to keep it now. Don't really have anything else here that does big old school sounds as well as this. Looks like the H-1015 here, says Matsumoku apparently, made from 1980-1981: https://samick.fandom.com/wiki/H-1010#H-1015 I take it that serial number means it's from 1980? Kinda gutted if so as I was born in '81!

Been on here years and seen you lot snagging vintage bargains, well today was my day as I spotted this old thing for £60 in a charity shop window. It's a Hondo II Professional with what I assume to be a Dimarzio, no Made in Japan on the neckplate so is this Korean/Samick or a later MIJ Tokai or something? Serial is 0110454. Sounds impressively loud unplugged, looks all original (to my untrained eye anyway) aside from the janky knobs. Pickup housing has cracks but not completely broken, parts rusty and definitely showing its age but should clean up to a less ratty state and the neck is straight. Some weight to it, given the rust and the fact I found it in the port town of Fleetwood I wonder if it actually has been used as a boat anchor at some point. Obligatory rubbish car seat shots.

Just spotted a TE 1x10 cab ripe for conversion if anybody is local: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BassPlayersMarketUK/permalink/7666562323355329/

I think if you spend a more reasonable amount of money then they'll build you a proper one, my mate got the Slash sig for around £150 delivered and when he complained about the issues they knocked another £30 off. It looks the part, sounds ok and is playable with a bit of buzzing if he wants a lowish action so not a complete write-off. He mainly bought it for fun and as a bit of a wallhanger knowing full well that it might be trash, the same week he ordered it he bought a Korean Epi gold top LP off Facebook for not much more which is a solid instrument. The headless basses on there do look tempting though.

I've bought a ton of stuff from AliExpress over the years, from cheap accessories and guitar parts to electronics costing a couple of hundred, I'm currently waiting on some bits and bobs from there at the moment in fact. Last year I came very close to buying a beautiful headless 5 string as I found some reviews of the manufacturer (Mountain/ZLG although probably renamed now) and they were shocking. Like the truss rod access being incorrectly routed so it couldn't be adjusted and neck not being radiused fully before the frets were installed. A mate of mine bought a Chibson Slash copy and while it is playable there is a bump in the fingerboard, same deal where it has been rushed out and not been profiled correctly. Maybe worth the risk if you can do the work yourself.

Ah no worries, thanks anyway!

Pm'd

Prob better off just buying one of the TC or Warwick 208 cabs, they're cheap enough.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/converting-a-tc-bg250-208-into-a-modular-amp-cab-pics.1385215/

Same guy later follows it up with "all I can say is wow....I know a way to get $1200 bucks from a guy." without realising how funny that sounds.

Letts has been trying to make building instruments his livelihood for well over a decade now and if his own claims are to be believed he's never been able to make it work financially. Probably time to work a regular job, build basses on the side in his spare time and finally refund the people he's put through the stress of fighting to get their hard earned money back from him.

Oooh, 8 pager already

Just checked, yeah it's that guy. Has every colour!

Spotted a fella selling a few of the 90s Korean versions and a more recent model on FB earlier today funnily enough, has a selection of colours.

Looks much better!

Conversely I didn't like the preamp or the EMG Select pickups and run mine passive with Duncan Design pups in there. There's a JJ Pro with a duff preamp on eBay at the moment ending tommorrow, failed to sell for the start bid twice (£125 then £100) so there might be a bargain to be had. Btw if anybody needs the dual concentric knob from one of these I have one in my parts drawer you can have.

Depending on the type of plastic I've been using small (and very carefully applied) amounts of solvents for repairs, making sure any excess is immediately cleaned off. More like chemical plastic welding than glueing, I've mainly used it for old retro laptop parts but also for other bits around the house, seems to create a very strong bond which doesn't have the typical glue line.

Can just send you the preamp if you want, I have always either used the bass passive or with a Bartolini buffer pre when I had a piezo bridge installed so have no use for it.

Great restoration, looks really smart.

Seems to be Gibson's MO over the last couple of years, endorsig big name artists at the end of their careers despite them having used other brands throughout their heyday. The Dave Mustaine sigs had some terrible reviews when they came out as both the Gibson and the £1k+ Epi were full of flaws, obviously the artists' instruments don't come off the same production line ours would but they just looked sub standard at any price point.

People are paying the money for them though although it does seem to be sigs and short runs mostly. A mate of mine is currently looking for a single pickup Firebird and made an £800 offer on a Joe Bonermaster sig he saw on eBay, it eventually sold for £1.1k. Another mate has his LP sig which now goes for a couple of hundred more than he paid new for it, I've played it and it's no better than a Korean LP Epi you can pick up any day of the week. It's weird and I don't like it.

I think part of the issue is that when you do standard and multiscale options there has to be a narrower range, especially as these are already pretty niche being headless and when you add fretless into the mix they can't go wild with different finishes. It's frustrating but understandable, they're gonna sell way more SR basses than EHB although I would like to see the fretless with the 1265 finish. It would be good if they brought some of the lower cost (but still nice) stained finishes over from the SR range like the SVM on the 300, TSU on the 400 or black stained burst on the 600 series. Couple that with the CND, T1 or Powerspans to further keep costs down and they could probably still hit that ~£900 price point or even lower if they use a veneer on a slab body with no chambering.

The Antique Brown 6er is nice, not available as a 5 though.