Bassassin

It is - I couldn't find a Reverb listing for it but there are numerous different dealers advertising the same bass, as is often their wont. This Korean listing has loads of pics. I like this a lot, tbf. https://geekinbox.kr/product/중고creation-jaguar-type-bass-415kggib효고/8252/category/1/display/3/?icid=MAIN.product_listmain_2 It occurs to me you could make a nice cheapo facsimilie of this from one of those old 'Stagguars', which had 2x MM pickups as standard. A bit of routing, new pickguard & a hardware upgrade...

To be fair the Ancoats 4-inline headstock would look a lot less of a wonky lump if you just cut the contrasting bit off.

I like these - it's good to see a builder with the guts to use their own designs. The three models appear to be the same apart from the body shape - the offset NQ appeals to me, the other two do look a bit neck-divey... I'd quite like to see that in confetti pink with a pearl scratchplate - in fact I'd quite like to see pics of a real one in any finish - I'm pretty sure the pics on the site are all digital renders.

Very sad about your friend, but nice to have a memento like this. So yeah - these are thought/assumed to have been made by Sakai Mokko but like most things vintage MIJ, particularly regarding those manufacturers active in the 60s & fading away in the early 70s (which is when these were from) it's unclear & sometimes contradictory. These turn up with a million different names (& no names like yours, & my guitar version) one of which is Sakai, although there's reason to believe Sakai Mokko the manufacturer was gone by '71-ish which about when these first emerged. Like other 60s brands that became well-known domestically (like Teisco & Guyatone) the name may have just become a headstock brand - there's reason to think this as the Sakai name appears on mid 70s instruments known to have come from Moridaira. That's further complicated by the fact Moridaira also operated as an importer/distributor and even used their own Morris house-brand on instruments that are assumed to be from Sakai Mokko. It's very confusing. And I can make it even more so, if you want. Or even if you don't... Look - it's Sunday, I have important things to put off so you should probably make yourself a brew & strap in... That cool/weird German-carved SG body isn't exclusive to these - it also turns up on a late 60s thing called an Excetro - made by Teisco Gen Gakki. TGG was set up mid-60s as a manufacturing subsidiary of Teisco to make necks/bodies, but after Kawai bought Teisco in 1967, TGG continued independently as an OEM manufacturer TGG went bust around 1970, so what looks very much like the same body on a different instrument from a different source could be for one of two reasons. Or three. Or random combinations of the three. Or something else altogether that I don't know about. Leaving aside the fourth (and arguably most likely) reason, No.1 is salvage. In the febrile 60s & 70s Japanese guitar industry, manufacturers came & went all the time, and those that went bust would typically have quantities of unfinished components lying around, which would simply get sold off. So a year or so later an existing or new manufacturer - maybe Sakai, or Moridaira, or whoever - sticks out a bunch of SG-ish guitars built on old Teisco Gen Gakki bodies. Or reason 2 - someone liked it & made a straight copy, or perhaps the TGG fire-sale included all the templates & tooling for making this design, which it almost certainly would have. Right - anyway - possibility No. 3, Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai - the manufacturers' collective with their parts-book system of ordering, where customers could choose components & have instruments assembled to their spec. Not so likely IMO as they'd need to have a huge stock of these bodies, considering these SG types were around for maybe 4 years, sold all around the world with a plethora of brands and 50+ years later, still turn up regularly. And that's it really. You won't get drivel like this off AI, I can tell ya. Pickups in the bass are Maxon bass humbuckers - they may have a serial on the back to give a date for the bass, if it's pre '72 they won't as it looks like Maxon introduced seials at some point in '72. The knackered nut's an easy fix as there's a zero-fret, meaning it's just a string guide, and I'd recommend not just whacking the 22nd fret into the empty slot - necks taper & unless you cut it to length you'll make a mess of that nice fretboard binding, and have the mother of all rough fret-ends to boot! Wonder how much a tech would charge to stick in a replacement & give the remainder a dress/polish?

These come up from time to time, apparently in the early 80s Kahler made them for DiMarzio. Had absolutely no idea they were still available new! Not sure I've seen another bridge where the strings anchor in the actual saddles. https://kahlerusa.com/product/brass-factory-1026-bd-tone-chambered-heavy-resonator-fixed-bass-bridge/

SnotGlo.

I hope whoever you borrowed it off didn't pay much for it, thinking it was a hand-made one-off. I think I paid about £40 for mine.

These look great in the flesh. £63??? Very gently kicking myself now.

The great Bill Hicks said this: That may or may not be factually correct, but if so, it may account for why statistically no-one on Planet Earth has ever heard or cared about a single note I've ever played, not to mention the hundreds of songs & pieces of music I've created! And that's because the smallest amount of tangible intoxication - whether from restricted substances or alcohol - utterly severs whatever connection exists between my brain & hands, and I literally cannot play. Muscle memory vanishes, the flow of learned song structure evaporates, my knowledge of the fretboard fades into the noise and it's all replaced by uncoordinated, stumbling, incoherent, atonal, unmusical nonsense. And giggling. Lots of giggling. Some may say that's just my perception, and my playing's actually better if I'm wasted (and they may have a point), but it has meant I've actively avoided mixing drugs/alcohol with music since my late teens/early 20s - and have been able to coldly (and sometimes furiously) observe other people, including former bandmates, spectacularly f*cking things up onstage, while plainly having the times of their lives, thinking everyone else was too, and that the garbage they were churning out was being channeled from some higher astral plane. Man. So I dunno if you're right, Bill.

Congratulations on the NBD (I love the subtle sparkle finish, and being MIJ it's a winner!), but you know me - I'm easily distracted... So, that cool black 'Made By The Bass Workshop' Precision... There's something oddly familiar about that. I'll take an entirely random guess that it's a through-neck build, and looks like it's had a somewhat comprehensive paintjob, including the fretboard - pretty sure I can see dot markers between some of the frets. So, what does the group think we'd find if we filled a bath with industrial-strength paint stripper, and lobbed it in? I've got a sneaking suspicion that when it was hauled out & hosed off, it might well look something like this: And they'd have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids! And leaving the headstock unpainted.

In a related vein, it's definitely worth having a listen to Storm Corrosion - a 2012 collaboration between SW and Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth. And counterintuitively - it's very much not a metal recommendation!

Best SW solo (in my view, obvs) - The Overview, Hand. Cannot. Erase, The Raven That Refused To Sing. The title track of Raven is quite possibly the most bleakly miserable piece of music I've ever heard. Best Porky Tree - In Absentia, Deadwing, Fear Of A Blank Planet, The Incident. The caveat with this is that this is SW's metal phase - and while not full-on metal albums by any stretch, the excursions into the genre can sound jarring and to be quite honest, inauthentic. To me it's sort of apparent that's not really in their musical DNA.

I don't know nuffink about these but I did find this, which calls itself a 2001 Hamer Standard Explorer bass, which is pretty much the same instrument as the Ebay one. https://www.loudandclearmusic.com/shop/c/p/HAMER-STANDARD-EXPLORER-4-STRING-BASS-2001-x88149777.htm I'd guess this is a sort-of reissue of the 80s Blitz (which as I mentioned, I know nuffink about) but much closer to being an unashamed Explorer knockoff, and likely Korean or Indonesian, considering the vintage. There are some minor differences from the Epi Explorer (trc, screw positions, pickups, bridge etc) but it may well be they're both variations of the same thing, from the same factory. The description's a pack of lies - he's trying to fob it off as an original US-made bass when you can actually see there's a country of origin (not legible, but absolutely NOT USA) under the serial number! Googled 'Hamer Explorer bass' & there are loads. Heres one, 2010, Korean. https://www.vintageandrare.com/product/Hamer-Standard-Explorer-Bass-2010-Black-Finish-87420#prettyPhoto I now know much more about these than I previously did...

Yes indeed - and just like her version despite all her denials, it is very real indeed - and it's not all Other People's Talent. Well, not always...