Bassassin

I've seen plenty of necks with cracking like that & I'm confident it's had a knock to the headstock, maybe even a drop, which had caused the glue joint between neck & fretboard to separate. If I'm correct a fix would involve simply easing the gap open sufficiently to get adhesive into the crack & then clamping. There's no way on earth anyone could know from the pics that it's not structural. Cracking like that doesn't just happen, in fact it appears to be gaping fractionally at the nut, which is likely truss rod tension pulling it open a little.

It's in lovely condition but that price is delusional to the tune of about £800. Spectacular wishful thinking there.

'Made In Japan' indicates manufactured by Fujigen Gakki, 'Crafted' refers to Tokai & Dyna Gakki, mostly late 90s onward. The 'E' prefix serial on this (mid 80s) is correct for Fujigen. I think these are original - I don't know MIJ Fenders as well as I could (working on it!) but I've seen this type before. The smaller units are Gotoh GB-1s or GB-10s and very common but not exclusive on 80s MIJ Fenders & Squiers. This does look like a very tidy mid 80s P.

Quite cool to see a proper Tony Z rather than the licensed or knockoff Zemaitises that turn up. Don't think he made many basses.

The final generation of Musician (1986) had the body shape of the SoundGears which launched the following year. Still going strong!

Kasuga Scorpion, a lot like this one: Never seen that clip before, always had a soft spot for The Shamen.

If the neck is a poly finish, the gloss will restore easily with T-Cut. I'd suggest something like a plastic scouring pad to get the satin finish - less chance of stray bits of wire wool ending up in your pickups/electronics...

Where to start? First off - you've shown a pic of 'an' Aria SB, and 'an' Ibanez Musician. Both basses were part of quite extensive ranges covering numerous features like pickup number & types, active or passive, number of frets & in the case of the Arias, physical proportions of the necks. The SB1000 & MC900 you've shown will sound and feel completely different - chances are if you're used to a conventional Fender-type neck, the near-parallel, wide-at-the-nut shape of the Aria SB series will feel very odd & possibly off-putting. The Aria SB-R & SB-Elite basses have a conventional neck shape but tend to be passive, in both single and twin pickup versions. There was an active version (SB-R150) but these are ridiculously rare. I'll have to admit my playing experience is limited to the Arias & my preference is for the SB-Rs & Elites, as I really don't get on with the SB necks. However I do know there were both passive & active versions of the Ibanez Musicians (passive defined by an 8-prefix rather than 9) and 22 & 24-fret versions. The pickups/electronics and aesthetics of the Musician basses changed quite radically over the lifespan of the range, and early ones likely sound quite different to the mid/late 80s basses. Someone who knows the MCs better than me will likely chip in, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone with experience of both ranges. These basses are all pretty rare these days - particularly the MCs - and as high-end vintage instruments, prices can get quite eye-watering too.

Same with mine - stuffed with foam & fine at low volume. At gig levels it really didn't like my standard aggressive/toppy mildly overdriven sound. Was tameable, but hard to get the grit & growl I was after.

Here's my real Talbo for good measure! Very shiny, very whiney - as in highly prone to microphonic feedback. I thought so - and some very odd-looking marking to the wood/finish under the decal on both of them.

Weird double-post thing!

Came here to nominate the Great Man for Keep Us On The Road!

It's clearly never coming off again - shame it looks like it's about 1mm out... Details aside that's a lot of (apparently) hand-crafted short-scale bass for £300. One of those fairly frequent things making me secretly glad there's no shipping & I'd have an 800-odd mile round trip to collect it.

Even the band described ESL as "live - ish"! I'm interested in hearing the live set in this release, but tbh I've heard Moving Pictures so many times since 1981 that I genuinely don't think I'll ever feel the need to listen to it again! Quite! Camera Eye is probably my favourite MP track, and Free Will might be my favourite Rush song (if there can ever be such a thing!) and I've never noticed a similarity!

MIght be worth contacting Gordon Smith through their FB page, it's likely they have records of their 80s instruments & should be able to give dates & spec. https://www.facebook.com/gordonsmithguitars There's also a Gordon Smith FB group for owners, might be more info available there - plus they'd probably like to see it! https://www.facebook.com/groups/GordonSmith

Tuners might be standard - there was a Maya 'deluxe' version with the only obvious difference being 'proper' open-gear units.

Mid 70s Japanese-made, probably by Chushin Gakki, would originally have had a big chrome truss rod cover, most common in the UK branded Columbus but sold with a thousand other brands, best-known would be Maya. Looks like tuners & control knobs have been changed, would have been sold with chrome ashtray covers, but 99% of those went straight in the bin. I think the scratchplate's original but pretty sure control plate's not. It should have an MIJ-stamped neckplate, if it's not then probably that's been changed too. I've had one - OK but not great, pickups a bit weak, body is butcher-block with front & back veneers, as mentioned earlier the black oversprays cover the lamination edges. Depends how cheap it is - I'm not really across values of this sort of stuff these days but I'd think a good one would probably fetch £200-odd. If it's massively cheaper than that then it's maybe worth a punt if you can be bothered!

Talbo = Tokai Aluminium Body. This seller = Talking boll0cks.

It's plainly the same bass & I'm 100% sure parts will be completely interchangeable - my point was that a high-end Japanese-made Aria version pretty clearly implies that the design's the property of Shiro Arai Co, rather than whatever 3rd party manufacturer made them. So IMO there are 3 ways this has happened: Aria has a deal of some sort with HB. The copyright/exclusivity of the design has lapsed - looks like the Aria version's out of production so that's possible. HB have done a dodgy deal with the factory and are flogging their own 'version', hoping that changing the headstock will keep them out of court! Never done a bulleted list on BC before! Anyway, maybe if it's point 3, we should all buy two (at least), lock them in a vault & wait for them to be worth a fortune after the LAWSUIT!

Custom Shop Bass Of Doom copy, innit? The meticulously-replicated wear and tear was achieved by throwing it in the very same skip Jaco chucked the original in. (Allegedly.) Played one of these in a shop years ago, it didn't motivate me to part with an insane amount of money for it, or make me sound like Jaco.

The plot thickens when you notice that the HB JJ headstock is almost identical to the Aria IGB's, only reversed! WHAT CAN IT MEAN???

That is very close, now you mention it. TBH when Aria launched these I was a bit disappointed they didn't use the original Matsumoku-era design, very elegant shape. The fact these new HBs are the same bass as the Aria RSBs is interesting & I think there has to be some sort of collaboration between Arai Co (Aria parent company) & HB/Thomann. On the other thread (which I hadn't read/noticed before this one was posted!) there's speculation that the design is the property of the manufacturing factory, probably in China, and therefore available to anyone who wants to use it - but the high-end versions of the RSB designs are, like many Aria designs, Japanese-made & with price tags to match: Think we even had a pink one on here in Basses For Sale a couple of years back.

It's the current Aria RSB with a different headstock: Looks like they'll be a fair bit cheaper, too. Which is nice.