Bassassin

Subbed. Awesome track, and that's some set of pipes your vocalist's got!

Don't know much about Hagstroms but I've been to Stockholm & I like ABBA & Opeth, so that's a start, at least. I also once placed a sneaky bid on an original Super Swede that the seller had no clue about & looked like it might sneak under the radar - think it ended up selling for the price of a small semi-detached in Croydon. If I'd won it for £95 I might have an opinion of some consequence, I suppose, but this does look interesting, as does the SS reissue. Didn't someone on here have a Hagstrom Beluga a few years ago? Cool-looking singlecut thing, doesn't look like they make it any more.

I assumed you hadn't clocked the seller's name - happens surprisingly often. I'd assume since the 'celebrity' owner is also the seller, he'd probably have actually played it, if only to make sure the pickups were working. In my defence I haven't watched any of those 'Americans scrapping over storage units full of old clothes & severed heads' shows in about 10 years & as a consequence I have no idea who Gunter The Celebrity is!

I suspect a 70s Matsumoku Ripper copy. Most common badged Aria but no-brand ones would've existed, like with pretty much any Japanese copy. Think I've seen these branded Kimbara too. Shame you didn't ask the BC Hive Mind before writing it off as crap & parting it out, tbh, would have been a nice & pretty straightforward looking resto project, & worth a few quid these days too. https://reverb.com/uk/item/6350520-aria-pro-ii-lb-650-ripper-bass-natural-1970s

The seller's name might proffer a clue...

I suppose it depends what you consider to be tidying! The jack is the worst bit but looks to me like it could be eased back level, glued from the front & then reinforced inside the route. Replacing a microswitch (prob 2-way) is a part that costs pence & about 10 minutes with a soldeing iron. Maybe a bit more of an issue if it's mounted on a PCB but I don't think these were. Like I say, it's perspective - I spent about 10 years doing this sort of bodge fix - sorry, restoration work - almost as a day job a while ago, so this doesn't look too daunting to me. That said, I'd be keener if the bass was £5 from the car boot instead of £300, like this Thunder 1 guitar I bodged restored was!

A lot of Ebay hopefuls are asking silly money, but with the occasional exception 1As & 1s still mostly go for £150 - £200-ish. Same as it ever was, really. It's probably a £400 - £500ish bass in top condition - if the electronics work it would just be tidying to make this one nice. Fortunately these days repro knobs are available for £35 a set.

Don't worry - it's not 'either or'!

Will be interesting to see what it fetches - needs a bit of tlc, & given the condition I wouldn't put money on the electronics being functional. About £300-ish would be fair enough but I wouldn't want to pay much more.

Would be easy enough to build as a bitsa - bit of extra pickup routing on a J body, cut a Tele Thinline-ish scratchplate then whatever neck/hardware/control layout you wanted. Reminds me a bit of the Aria Avante Steve Bailey sig.

I like the look of that, it's not the banal P or J clone I expected. However the dumb let's-pretend-a-bass-is-a-Telecaster control setup, which allows no scope for blending the pickups, makes it a nope.

I agree, but I'm weird like that. Others - not so much, the poor EDA was the opening salvo in the recent 'Ugly Basses' thread! Had mine for years and it still smells of plastic!

Not wanting to be left out of the Scottish BCer pile-on (I'm in West Lothian) - hi Andy and welcome to BC! And if your profile pic's anything to go on, welcome to another orange Ibanez EDA owner!

That's what we want to see - the willingness to take one for the team! Y'know what though - I genuinely hope it turns out to be a good, well-written read.

And that just the illustration!