Bassassin

Also an SS300, which was Yamaha's 80s take on the Samurai shape - MIJ, in great condition, ridiculously rare & half the price of the Taiwan-made SBV500. Odd. Apropos of nothing, the high-end, through-neck version of this, the SC600, has been on my OHMYGODIWANTTHAT list for many, many years. They don't come up & I wouldn't be able to afford one if it did!

The only non-Status Status I've encountered before is an early 70s Japanese Jazz copy (which oddly, turns up in an old Jedson catalogue) which pre-dates Rob Green's output by about a decade. And lest we forget - his basses were originally called 'Strata' - until Fender noticed & took issue with the first syllable - so neither of these other Status brands are anything to do with Rob. Having had a quick look, these 'Status Series' things do just look like generic 90s-ish budget copies, possibly Korean-made if you're lucky. There's not too much out there but the few pics & mentions all seem to originate from Australia (as does the OP) which suggests it was an Australian importer/distributor using the name.

It is. But £800? See what I mean by silly prices? Really makes me wish I'd bought the one I saw in a local Crack Converters for £150 a few years back. I might've, if it hadn't been the same colour as mine...

Exactly how I've frequently described mine! Had one of these for a while, such a playable, surprisingly well-balanced & great-sounding bass. As well as looking amazing! Getting pretty hard to find now, sometimes very silly prices when they come up, too.

The controls (if I remember!) are separate for each neck, 2x master v & t, & 3-way microswitch pickup selector. Plus a toggle to switch between necks. Always thought co-axial volumes would be a good upgrade, so you could blend the pickups. The necks/scales are identical so it would be easy enough to swap them - fretless on top suits me so I never tried. It's as well-made as you'd expect from a hand-crafted bass, & the fretless neck is especially nice - but it's a slightly cumbersome & very, very heavy lump! It did get me to the point of starting to design what would be my ideal fretted/fretless twin-neck, basically by listing the things I don't much like about this!

I've got this. Bought it for my now-defunct prog band, where fretless would've been nice in parts of a couple of songs. Sadly hasn't been out of its case in several years! It's a 1985 Gordy Blueshift, and was a one-off, as far as I could find out.

Bloody hell! Looks like a horribly modded manufactured neck fitted to a home-bodged body. I'm guessing the neck must have a tenon sitting in a slot in the body, & the screws that actually hold it together are hidden under the neckplate. Nice bridge & tuners though, I guess...

Always liked Antigua, but then, I have no taste. Quite relieved there's no Jazz. And I definitely don't need another Strat. Do I? That's no SnotBurst! This is SnotBurst - or more accurately, SnotGlo.

Yep, it's the same bass as the Ebay one! Yours - MIJ, 1987 - would have been the last Matsumoku version before the factory closed that year. This one's '88 so almost certainly Korean, probably using most of the original hardware/electronics from the Japanese production, with the body & neck being MIK. That would account for minor differences.

That's been up for a while, think it's been discussed here too. Originally made for Matt Pegg, son of Dave (Fairport Convention) - Dave loved his Riverhead Unicorn so much he wrote a song about it!

Bugger! Where's me specs?

Not seen the bass before, I first saw the guitar version reissue a year or two ago. These probably don't have a great deal in common with the original Watkins instruments - I had a Rapier 33 guitar, which had no truss rod, home-made pickups, an odd plastic coating instead of paint & switchgear 'borrowed' from a Morphy-Richards hairdryer. The reissue is £470 - mine was £6 from the car boot! They've made a decent job of replicating the look of the originals - although the 24 fret, block inlay neck on the bass doesn't quite look 'right', to me.

I'd think this young lady not being hampered by a 34" scale & 42mm nut is worth showing to any young bassist! I had an idea someone on here had one! But two, you say? One for me & one for Ms. @MuddBassthen! Sorted!

To be fair, that's why I want one.

This is what she wants: Daisy Rock Stardust Elite. Unfortunately, so do I, so she'll have to fight me for it.* *Spoiler - she'll win, no bother.

It's an Aria STB-GT, basically a mashup of a Stingray, a P shape Aerodyne body & a Jazz neck. I managed to blag one for £99 back when it was a current model. I think list was £250-odd back in 2007 or so. The G4M 'version' looks like a steal at £150 - I'm actually relieved there isn't a PJ or JJ version - don't need any more impulse purchases!

That's not a Mats serial or any MIJ that I'm familiar with, and if it's as clearly dateable as it looks, this is post-Matsumoku (the factory closed in 1987) and 99.9% likely to be (as the guy says) a Korean-made Thunder 1A. MIK Westones are pretty uncommon compared to MIJ, & I don't think I've seen a Korean Thunder 1A before.

Where's the groan emoji when you need it?

I'd like to think that saved someone's life in a flood.

Sounds right - DiMarzios are imperial, anything MIJ/MIK & hex-poled will be metric, them's the rules! If you pop it out the wiring should be black/white/red/green - I don't think any Japanese units used that. If you're lucky it might even have PAF stickers...

You wouldn't have what on it?

That's actually pretty cool. I do think I'd have made that centre section broad enough for a proper intonatable bridge, less precarious string retainers & a bridge pickup, though. Wonder why they didn't?

The bendy bridge is another thing that points to Matsumoku - loads of Mats basses from that late 70s/early 80s era had these & they all seem to be made of cheese. This is the one that was on my Westy Track 2 when I got it:

I've never played an SR300, but have owned a few other versions of the Soundgear (there have been dozens - the range goes back to the late 80s!) and they tend to be very good basses, particularly if you get on with a narrow neck. What's interesting about the SRs is that for some reason they've always had a pretty low re-sale value, which means you'll very likely be able to find a used model from higher up the range for the same sort of price as a new SR300.