Bassassin

Malko's also on most of the vintage MIJ groups, he's got a stunning collection of old Yamaki Washburns - I keep threatening to pop 'round & rob him while he's out! He does make some interesting bitsas - was very tempted by a Tele with too many pickups & switches the other day!

Hooky played a Hondo because he didn't have much money back then! The Hondos (made by Samick, in Korea, from sub-firewood grade ply) were pretty much bottom of the Faker foodchain in the 70s, apart from those horrible shortscale Kays, which don't count. Decent MIJs come up quite regularly on the Faker FB group, if you're not already a member.

Original Futuramas are a bit off my radar, but these recent Futurama-brand J copies popped up on Ebay 5 or 6 years ago, with sellers claiming association with the "original" brand and asking somewhat inflated prices on the basis of that. Doubtless a perfectly competent Chinese Jazz clone - maybe a bit of curiosity value for the name, but that's all.

That *really* doesn't matter - as far as FMIC would be concerned every single one is a violation of their registered trademark. See above. I don't know if Fender has a policy of not wasting their time on small fry, or if BC just hasn't been noticed yet - but we are allowing (and from the evidence of this thread) advocating trademark violation. Not sure how sensible this is...

Fair point about criminal law but IMO that's become a bit of a red herring in this discussion - if any sh!t (no matter how improbably) was to hit BC's fan over this it would be 100% trademark/IP violation related. As I said I don't think we should ban the sale of fakey Fender branded basses but it does seem to me that what we're doing is we're getting away with it because we're pretty inconspicuous. Just seems sensible to be very, very clear about what's for sale.

Fujigen used the lower-half stamped plate (the same as on this bass) up until late 1975 when they introduced the use of serial numbers. The (more common) upper-half stamped plates were never used by Fgn and don't seem to be used by one specific factory. Like many MIJ details it's often easier to define who didn't do something rather than who did - so we know Fujigen, Matsu, Kasuga, Moridaira, etc didn't use them. We also know Chushin Gakki definitely did, but so did a lot of others. There's very litle that's exclusive to any one manufacturer though, certainly during the 70s copy era. I mentioned that Cimar was owned by Hoshino, but Hoshino's not a manufacturer but a trading company - they contracted Fujigen to build Ibanez and some post-copy era Cimars but I don't think they made the copy stuff - they're all indentifiably different to Ibanez copies - which were all generic Fujigens anyway, and were available with different brands from other importer/exporters. Pickups on the bass here appear to be originals, these round-end types appear in a lot of MIJ copies.

Why didn't BC's owners just tell John Hall that & send him away with a flea in his ear? I think that's rubbish, tbh, a trademark's a trademark.

I kind of understand why Prowla's a bit nonplussed about BC's multiplicity of standards here. The moment scary Mr Hall pops his chubby little pate over the parapet we ban all sales of anything even remotely Rick-ish (just in case, ooh, can't be too careful) - but carry on freely flogging fakey Fenders like there's no tomorrow. And then get all indignant and defensive when it's pointed out that using imitation Fender logos flouts the exact same trademark laws.

Ebay take down "counterfeits" when reported/spotted. Why? They don't want to be involved in litigation from brand & copyright owners, and they can be very anal/absolutist about this. Trust me, it's really tricky to sell a 70s MIJ copy of a Gibson LP (without a fake logo!) when you can't say what it's a copy of! I don't know specifically about Fender but a lot of manufacturers (RIC is one) take individual complaints very seriously, in order to protect their brand reputation.

It's very close to this Cimar: Obvious difference is the trussrod adjuster position but details like that had a tendency to change over production history. Looks like this has been sold unbranded, as very many instruments from this era were - where a logo has been removed there's inevitably some marking or ghosting on the headstock, often leaving an identifiable silhouette. The headstock finish looks original. Could be a Fujigen but I don't think so. The lower-half stamped neckplate is not an identifying factor - Fgn used them but so did Moridaira and Kasuga, and doubtless others did too, it's a generic part. I'm also pretty sure that copy-era Cimars (if this is/was one!) weren't Fujigens, despite the brand being owned by Hoshino Gakki. I've never seen a confirmed Fgn with those round-end J pups. It's absolutely *not* a Matsumoku - all copy-era Mat Fender clones either have the "Steel Adjustable Neck" - stamped plate, which was exclusively used by Mat - or a Matsumoku-branded plate. I'm also pretty confident that Mat didn't use these pickups. I've seen and owned a positively unhealthy number of 70s MIJ copies and the reality is that an awful lot of them are unidentifiable and will remain so. This isn't helped by the fact that they do sort of have a tendency to look quite similar! There's interesting evidence appearing about how a lot of these things were put together too - it's often unrealistic to assume one factory made a complete instrument, a lot of mix & match assembly went on with necks, bodies, hardware & electronics all being sourced from different workshops. There's even a school of thought (which is interesting but I'm a bit skeptical about) that some of these "salvage" instruments were built in Korea from various exported Japanese parts, because domestic Japanese regulations & taxation actually made that more affordable.

Yes - probably. But suppose that member had got angry about it and reported BC to FMIC's UK operation for allowing the sale of counterfeits. Might well result in a C&D letter. Also BC has a good reputation as a instrument marketplace. Someone with an axe to grind on social media could do damage to that if they chose. I certainly wouldn't prohibit sale of copy-logo'd basses but an absolute clarity policy wouldn't hurt.

The point I'm trying to (probaly clumsily!) make is that copy sales on the likes of BC do not threaten their business, in the way they potentially would to Rickenbacker.

Pragmatically, I think it would be good if any fake-logo'd bass sold here was *very* clearly labelled as such. The fact one member has bought a Limelight assuming it wasn't a copy does demonstrate that it is a potential issue.

It's important to remember that John Hall's RIC is actually a small family business whose protection of their trade dress (or IP, if you will) is vitally important to their continuing to market their brand and products succesfully. They also rely strongly on a rabid & largely all-American fan/customer base to help them do this. Fender, on the other hand, is a wealthy multinational who don't need to waste energy on small-fry like BC sinced they intelligently managed to corner the market on decent licensed copies in the early 80s - which is why we have Squiers. Gibson did the same thing with Epiphone. Not sure I'm right in thinking that Limelight no longer flog their expensive knockoffs with Fender logos, but if so it's presumably because FMIC had a little word. FWIW, not sure if it makes me a whiney, first-world-problems, boo-hoo snowflake or whatever - but I do consider copies with fake logos to be somewhat akin to that kid in the 70s who scraped the "Satellite" logo off his plywood LP copy and daubed "Gibson" on, with white Humbrol model paint. A tiny little bit tragic.

Couldn't agree more, with the exception of the Vantage (which is both well-made and rare in the UK) this is a sh!tshow of horrible, borderline-unplayable throwaway trash. The Grant J-type thing is the exact bass I started with - if I hadn't got something slightly better after a couple of months, there's no way I would have carried on playing.

Wow - this thread's certainly kicked off since I last checked it! Fwiw I'm in the "tonewood = bollox" camp. Strings, pickups, and the monkey plucking the strings are the things that make a difference.

Bit of a can of worms, tbh. I appreciate that US trademark law means that a trademark holder has to challenge every infringement or they risk losing their right to exclusivity - but I don't think that can be applied retrospectively to very old MIJ copies. I think Hall's big problem with these is that rather awkward little detail that they existed before JH's Rickenbacker International Corp did (I think he set that up in the late 80s) and they existed a very long time before he registered any of his trademarks. Some smartarse has previously pointed out (OK, it was me) that a Japanese company that sold Rickenbacker copies in the 70s - such as Ibanez, perhaps - could demonstrate that they made basses which featured all of JH's registered trade dress designs as far back as 1971. That might imply that Mr Hall didn't actually have any right to exclusive use of trademarks he first registered in about 2000. Probably just as well that Ibanez have better things to do.

It is stupidly easy when you know what to look for - but this discussion's been had before and makes no difference to the BC position on these things. This came about as a result of John Hall making legal threats against BC over For Sale listings of Fakers and the Faker/Rick ban here is (as I understand it) as much a middle-finger to the man's unprofessional & asinine behaviour as it is a safeguard of BC's interests. I find it interesting that he leaves the FB groups alone.

Whilie I ain't no Aria SB expert, I do know that the SB-Rs, SB Elites and SB-ELTs (which are all variations on the same thing anyway) are the ones with more conventional string spacing & neck proportions. I don't get on with the tight spacing and near-parallel necks on "normal" SBs, whch is how come I know!

£80? Robbin' b******!!!

And here they are attempting to gouge £400 for a piece of borderline-unplayable throwaway plywood sh!te: https://notomguitars.com/collections/basses/products/1970s-unmarked-short-scale-jazz-bass Ignorant and unscrupulous.