Bassassin

This is correct - all design elements of the 4000 series basses are registered trademarks - oddly apart from the scratchplate, unless that's changed now. Even the footprint of the tailpiece got Hipshot into trouble when they decided to make an aftermarket Rick bridge that intonated correctly & didn't bend in half under string tension. J.

I picked up a Squier P on Gumtree for £35. Turned out to be late 80s, A-serial MIJ. Bonus! Jon.

Broadly speaking, absolutely none of the current Rick copies look more than passingly like the real deal. Familiarise yourself with genuine tailpieces, pickups, tuners, pickup covers etc and you can spot a modern copy a mile off. As far as vintage MIJ, Korean, Brazilian & Italian copies are concerned, most of them are pretty easy to spot from the construction - Ricks don't have bolt-necks (apart from the double neck!) or single truss rods. There are only a couple of vintage Fakers that try to get the detals right, but Joey's Bass Notes, linked above, will show you what to look for. I should point out though that ALL the Japanese neck-throughs have the binding gap, exactly like the real thing - I think it's only the Italian Gherson that doesn't - but all the hardware's wrong on that. Jon.

I've always had a a somewhat cynical opinion about all these sub-genres, unfortunately it's mostly music journalists & marketing chimps trying to define/promote something fundamentally unremarkable & retrospective as the Next Big Thing, and these labels tend to stick. Rock music's an incredibly conservative bunch of styles and personally I think you'd struggle to find anything particularly revolutionary or genre-changing that's happened in the last 25-30 years. And I speak as a dyed-in-the-wool prog rocker/metalhead/occasional punk who's lived & breathed this stuff for 35-odd years. Math Rock? Sort of prog-meets indie, as distinct from Mathcore which tends to be frentic Prog-Metal with shouty Hardcore vocals. I think.... Jon.

I've had serious GAS for one of these for years - even looked for one when the band was playing in Prague a few years back, to no avail! Although we did play with a band whose bassist had a gorgeous Ibanez 2388B/DX, early one with full-width glitter inlays... Anyway I should remind everyone that we can't discuss sales of instruments of this nature here on BC, otherwise certain CEOs of California-based instrument manufacturers will materialise & start screeching and throwing poo at us, sort of like a demented 23-stone chimpanzee. Or something. Jon.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1402942979' post='2478157'] Jedson LP bass with bolt-on neck. Quite detailed list of what's wrong with it, which doesn't seem to add up to all that much. Except, what's that bolt on the heel of the neck? [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/jedson-bass-/171360230376?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item27e5dd9be8"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item27e5dd9be8[/url] [/quote] Had one of these (identical but unbranded) when I was 16! J.

[quote name='karlfer' timestamp='1402847179' post='2477201'] A tenner Jon, you have a reputation to uphold. A fiver surely [/quote] Fair point, I just thought a tenner might help towards the postage... J.

Live Music tends to be somewhat overpriced in general - they currently have a Sunn Mustang (90s Indian-made licensed P copy) for £120 and an 80s Westone Spectrum for £250. Sold privately these would be closer to half those prices & I'd apply similar logic to their Baldwin. J.

[quote name='Moos3h' timestamp='1402831805' post='2477065'] Haha, I am the winner 'bidder' on that SR900 - I bought it because I'm looking for something cheap, decent and light. Collecting this week so I'll let you know whether it was the bargain it hopefully appears to be! [/quote] Glad it was someone on 'ere! If it's a good 'un but you decide you don't want it (in a few months after all my house-move b0ll0cks is sorted out, preferably!) you could make an easy tenner on it by flogging it to me - been regretting selling the 2 SR800s I had for some time now... J.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1402780852' post='2476807'] Erm, Jon. You called someone a "cheeky git" because they bought something from you for £64, and then listed it for £150 [/quote] And I stand by that assessment! I listed the Watkins at 99p - bidding wars are great, ain't they! And in fairness I did do a lot of very careful cleaning and fettling to make it as nice as possible - I think it had had mice living in it when I got it... J.

Probably a bit ambitious but it depends - this sort of stuff can be worth a few quid to the right collector. I was highly surprised (pleasantly!) when I sold a fairly scruffy '62 Watkins Rapier 33 guitar for £300-ish. Particularly considering I only paid £6 for it... Jon.

If that was near me, I'd probably be 'round the back of the booze shop in a flash, regardless of the ongoing downsizing. Really silly bargain, someone get it bought, even if you just want to flip it for a few bob. The C prefix on the SN indicates Cort, so it'll likely be very good, if my Cort-built Ibby EDA900 is anything to go on. Jon.

I'm guessing someone doesn't get out much...

Reading through the description, the bass appears to have a massive case of gender dysphoria. Jon.

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1402524159' post='2474521'] Can't believe he's asking £150 for that Hohner. There was one sold beginning of the month for £64. [url="http://www.ebay.ca/itm/121347417252?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649&clk_rvr_id=648657162201&afsrc=1"]http://www.ebay.ca/i...7162201&afsrc=1[/url] [/quote] http://basschat.co.uk/topic/7473-japcrap-spotting/page__view__findpost__p__2473998 Do try & keep up! J.

Yep - sold the Hohner on Ebay, his listing is the 4th time it's been on this year. I made a couple of quid on the deal, but have done a fair bit of work to it to make it as nice as possible. I didn't buy it to flip, though, I thought it looked interesting & wondered if it was related to the Washburn Force series. Turned out to be an OK but not-fantastic copy. Anyway only sold it as part of my pre-house move clearout, along with a pretty but ratty Satellite LP copy that was my daughter's. Next on Ebay will probably be an MIJ J copy I bought late last year, interesting but the neck's not great. Decent stuff will go on BC, once push comes to shove... J.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1402475938' post='2473815'] The same seller has some 1980s Hohners for sale. [/quote] The same seller has a 1980s Hohner he bought from me for £64 and listed starting at £150 on the day he got it! Cheeky git, but at least he took his own pics! J

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1402441840' post='2473655'] We discussed Lincoln basses on here some years ago. Looks nice, but not worth £500 I think. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Rare-Bass-Guitar-/301211595720?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item46219c33c8"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item46219c33c8[/url] [/quote] Very ambitious! Yep, these turn up with a few different names, (Asama's pretty common) and seem to be variations on a design made by Kawai, who I somehow pinned down as a manufacturer for Fernandes - who also had a version or two of this. Lincolns all seem to be in the UK, making his US brand claim as probable as his Matsumoku assertion. But - it's stripy, it MUST be a Matsumoku! Oh - and while we're on the subject of wildly ambitious pricing: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kapa-Electric-Bass-Guitar-Japan-/251555552366"]http://www.ebay.co.u...n-/251555552366[/url] I do like the offset position markers, but that aside unbranded & Jedson-branded versions of this don't tend to fetch more than £70 - £100 or so on a good day. J

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1402480565' post='2473903'] If you genuinely believe that music is a gift from God then in learning more about it and becoming better at it are you not respecting the gift given to you? Surely rejecting the gift is more of a problem? Your own posts show that you do not put music above God in any way. [/quote] Been trying to think of a way to phrase my thoughts, and this comes pretty close. Personally I'm agnostic, leaning heavily towards atheism, but I've been through some serious stuff recently which led to a lot of soul-searching & and I'd say a much closer relationship with spirituality - which I don't as yet fully understand. However - your music is a part of you, it's part of the person God, as I'm sure you see Him, created, and as such surely your faith underpins your music. I think you should try and see the two things as part of a whole, and not seperate entities. It concerns me that you're making a decision that might have deeper implications than you presently realise in other areas of your life, including your relationship with God. I can't accept that your God would want you to abandon something so integral to you as a person, and to make yourself desperately unhappy as a result. Jon.

[quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1402425397' post='2473429'] May I be the first to say "phwoarr"? Phwoarr. Thank you. [/quote] I'll second that man's "phwoarr". Gorgeous, gorgeous neck. Jon.

As far as I've been able to make out, Custom was a European brand - probably Netherlands - from the 70s. I picked up a Custom brand Les Paul Junior copy at my local car boot a few years back, all the references to the brand I could find (not many) were sites & people from Holland. Most names on 70s MIJ instruments were importer/distributors & music shops' own brands, so it's highly unlikely Custom was ever officially imported into the UK. I'm guessing the bass in question is the one that surfaced on the Rickenfakers FB group - in which case I'm 99.9% sure it was made by Kasuga Gakki, who imo were one of the best Japanese factories of the 70s. I have a Kasuga bolt-neck Faker (The Rickenbugger) and it's a beautiful & exceptionally well-crafted instrument. Jon.

DiMarzio pole pieces have imperial-sized hex sockets (3/32) and I would expect the thread is also imperial. Unfortunately I seriously doubt they're interchangeable with metric Schaller poles. Jon.

That's interesting & rather cool at the same time. But why are these old MIJ neckthroughs always a: fitted with a Precision pickup and b: collection only? Reading throught the guff I wrote about Asama, and the other brands the same instruments sometimes appeared with, I seem to remember that I subsequently discovered a circuitous route to reach the conclusion that some of them were made by Kawai. Perhaps. J.

Excellent - I'll be picking that up. Jon.