Bassassin

Beautiful - looks like you've done a great job of cleaning & tidying it. Persist with for a while it before you make a decision, however if you do decide to move it on, there are plenty of people here who'd be interested. Well, me at least! Jon.

This philosophy inevitably originates with guitarists, to whom the only "real" bassist is by default a guitarist's girlfriend. I have been told I "play bass like a guitar" which, as well as being a load of arrant testicles, is contradicted by having being told by guitarists that I "play guitar like a bassist". I prefer to think that I play music, with a musical instrument. Jon.

[quote name='noelk27' timestamp='1391981865' post='2363335'] Which time? [/quote] Referring to the shenanigans involving the gentleman presumably trying to sell an "awesome" (and doubtless "raer") Grant P copy a couple of years back. J.

Result! How much more than the £95 did you end up paying? Looking forward to seeing the pics. Jon.

I doubt you can go too far wrong bolting a Fender copy together, but I'd be very wary of splintery amateur defrets patched up with epoxy. If it was a factory fretless neck it'd be worth a watch, but I wouldn't touch it with that defret job. Jon.

Blimey, the fun I missed while I was away! Anyway, Grant, like most importer rebrands, were a whole bunch of different things - some were fine, some were woeful (like my first bass) and most were pretty average. This one will likely need some TLC and acetone but it's at least solid wood, which is a good sign. I'd happily pay £40 for that if it was down the bottom of my road. J.

I personally (can't speak for bandmates past, present or future) have never broken any of these "rules". Except maybe 2, if cropped combats count. Anyway, I now feel that having inadvertantly adhered to this asinine "code", I have somehow failed, so I must make it my priority to go out of my way to flagrantly commit each & every one of these so-called transgressions. All at the same gig. Jon.

A few years back there was an acrylic bodied P copy branded Axl. I managed to find a body from one (on BC as it happens) & made myself a bitsa: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:71956] It's a nice thing to look at, unfortunately it weighs so much it has its own gravity well, and the neck I used is rubbish. Jon.

This is the third or fourth time it's been relisted, price has been dropped by a couple of quid. Nice looking bass but something seems a bit "off" about the ad - can't help wondering how come a one-off custom bass is being sold by someone who plainly doesn't have half a clue about it. Jon.

Probably FlatEric can tell you more than me, as he's got one! And Noel knows this stuff way better than I do... I've got an RSB Deluxe 2, which appears to be the same bass apart from having a J-layout bridge pickup instead of the 2 Ps the SB has. Solid colour body/neck too. Just curious whether they are essentially the same bass - although FlatEric can probably answer that, too, as I seem to remember he has a nice pearl white RSB Deluxe. J.

When's the clip from? If it's mid-90s, both Watson & Adamson were using guitars made by Glasgow luthier Jimmy Moon, if I remember correctly. Jon.,

That's right - Jim Marshall set up a distribution deal with Rose-Morris in the 60s & this turned out to be very restrictive, so the CMI & Park brands were set up to get around this. J.

[quote name='solo4652' timestamp='1391444340' post='2357213'] Sometime soon. You can't be local, if you say "Sunny"... [/quote] Happy it was someone on BC. Slightly less happy that it wasn't me! J.

[quote name='loula' timestamp='1391387840' post='2356691'] Jon - I'm certainly hoping that's the case! If you see one, let me know. Please! [/quote] If you delve into the darker corners of the Market Place, there's an Ebay section which has a stickied topic called "JapCrap Spotting". The title's tongue-in-cheek rather than denigratory - most Japanese instruments from the mid 70s onwards are top quality, and this is where a dedicated team of [s]pikeys and gyppos[/s] sorry, I meant "knowledgeable, dedicated researchers and enthusiasts" ferret out obscure and often desireable vintage Japanese basses. Keep an eye on this thread and you'll likely end up with half a dozen peculiar and near-unique old basses and a lot less money. And one of them might even be a Rail! If I spot one elsewhere, I'll let you know. J.

It sold for £99?? Bloody hell. J.

Rickenfakers have been around for a while - the earliest ones probably date from when John Hall was in short pants. The Italian-made Shaftesburys (made by Eko) were mid 60s and amusingly were sold through Rose-Morris, official importer of Rickenbacker at the time. Around the same time, there were some Fujigen-built guitars (360-ish things) badged as Antoria & Ibanez, and some interesting early Aria semis, including a rather nice 4005-alike. The earliest 4001 copy I've seen appeared in a 1970 (approx) Greco catalogue for the Japanese market - the bass is the Fujigen through-neck copy commonly seen badged Ibanez, with Gibson-style pickups. Instead of the usual full-width glitter inlays, it has alternating single & double dots and a triple dot at the twelfth position. I saw one of these go through US Ebay a long time ago, never seen another since. Not a big fan of these funny little Kays, but this one looks very tidy. Some of these early Taiwanese instruments are better than you'd expect. Jon.

Lovely bass - I bought the el cheapo Korean-made C5 Zephyr 5-string years ago 'cos I couldn't afford a "proper" Cirrus! Think I'd have gone for Cyrus rather than Cyril... Jon.

Hi Loula - £40 for a Thunder 1a as a great score and these are excellent basses. Stick around and no doubt someone will be selling a Rail sooner or later, a few members have them - there's a fair bit of passion for Westones and other Japanese basses from the 70s & 80s. Jon.

[quote name='kennyrodg' timestamp='1391278264' post='2355350'] Just won this one and thanks to Annoying Twit for the earlier heads up post about the Cimars. Fingers crossed it'll be a half decent Bass. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cimar-P-J-Bass-Guitar-/331116537418"]http://www.ebay.co.u...r-/331116537418[/url] [/quote] Good score - this is a [url="http://www.ibanez.co.jp/anniversary/expansion.php?cat_id=34&now=3"]Cimar XR2065BS[/url] and looks in much better condition than the one I restored a few years back: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:63117] I might trouble you for a tracing of the scratchplate at some future point - the one on mine's a cheap Precision plate & it ain't quite right! J.

If anyone does grab it for parts, I'm interested in the case. J.

Looks like it's mostly things stuck in the holes from the original scratchplate. Apart from the defret butchery & additional holes, this might restore OK. Most rattlecan resprays are over the original finish and once removed, the old lacquer can be re-polished easily enough. Looks like it's got all its original parts so it could potentially be a bargain project. Has that fingerboard been painted? Jon.

[quote name='FlatEric' timestamp='1391069511' post='2352798'] That's ruined my day!! [/quote] Ruined [i]your[/i] day??? How do you think [b]I [/b]felt? Pics, saved for viewing anytime I feel just a bit too smug & fortunate: And the text from the ad: [quote][b]Electric Guitar for sale or swap £30 Edinburgh City Centre An electric guitar sitting in a cupboard not being played. Happy to sell for £30 or swap for something interesting. Possibly swap for any old wind up mechanical clock that isn't working since my son has taken an interest in trying to repair old timepieces. Any questions just ask. [/b] 01-12-13[/quote] Plainly it's a litle bit challenged & neglected, but thirty quid? Or a bloody broken clock... Sorry to anyone expecting content of a more Jap, or indeed crap nature. J.

Not familiar with the Kimberly brand but I don't think this bass is anything to do with Teisco - they did make a Jazz-inspired design, but it was nothing like this: [url="http://www.mark-cole.co.uk/teisco/bass.htm"]http://www.mark-cole...teisco/bass.htm[/url] bottom l/h corner. All the Japanese manufacturers built to contract & would put any name on an instrument that the customer wished. Pin-badge instruments like this would be as likely been badged up by the distributor prior to going to retail. This bass looks early 70s to me, pin badges had pretty much disappeared by around 1975. I wouldn't think it's earlier than that, for reasons I'll get to. This is quite an unusual little bass and not very common - it would be a pity I think to butcher it, simply because you're unlikely to ever find an identical one. The other reason I'd be loath to spent a lot of time, cash and effort modding it is simply that they're really not very good. I can say this with some authority because my very first bass, bought in June 1978 for £59 from Unisound in Chatham High street was pretty much identical to this, apart from having clover-leaf tuners and "Grant" on the headstock. And it was [i]hateful[/i]. [sharedmedia=core:attachments:53794] [sharedmedia=core:attachments:53795] Not mine (I killed it with extreme prejudice years ago) but identical. It is short scale (so your neck-swap plan may be complicated), the body is plywood, pickups are weak single-coils in fake Hofner staple cases and I suspect it's difficult to do better than approximate decent intonation. Considering that what you plan on doing is to bin everything apart from the body, and the body of this bass is cheap plywood, I'd recommend you hang this on the wall and just build a decent parts bass fro scratch! Jon.