Bassassin

Paul - you know I'm going to be a pedant about this but indulge me! Broadly that's a list of a lot of of the variations, but on the whole these are what we can use to ID the factory which made a specific Faker. Factories stuck to their designs & details with only a few variations, which were either based on model level or evolution over time. A good example of the latter would be Fujigen (Ibanez, some Greco, some Electra and others), whose early basses (from '71-ish) had early 70s Rick traits like checked binding & full-width inlays, but were fitted with Gibson-type pickups, because it seems no Rick copy units were available at the time. The model was revised, probably around '74/5 to have Rick type pickups & small inlays, but kept the checked binding. The Grover type tuners were exclusive to Matsumoku and one of the ways to ID a Mat copy. They also appeared on other Mats basses, including the Epiphone Scroll bass & some through-neck ET288s. Thing is, many people don't realise how many different manufacturers (from major concerns like Fujigen & Chushin, to little backstreet woodshops), were operating in Japan during the 70s - possibly numbering into three figures. During the copy era most, if not all, will have made a Rick 4001 type. We're certain about a handful really, mostly where a brand name is known to be linked to a specific manufacturer. Obviously that's particularly tricky with Rick clones due to the tendency of orginal trcs to go in the bin!

In fairness, RIC didn't exist in the 70s! No-one got litigious about anything much back then, the big US companies didn't see Japan as a threat until it was way too late. Hence Fender & Gibson losing exclusivity to the body shapes of their instruments, and Fender ultimately being so spooked by the quality of MIJ Strat etc copies (compared with their own CBS-era tat) that they contracted Fuijigen Gakki to build Squiers & got Kanda Shokai - owner of Greco - to run Fender Japan. RIC trademarked their designs in the 90s/00s at a time when Rick copies were practically defunct, and up until very recently (when Big John stepped down, or got locked in a padded room, or whatever) protected their IP with extreme hostility and prejudice. So yeah, BC definitely got more of a shoeing than anyone involved in making or selling Fakers in the 70s!

Hell's teeth - what's wrong with some people? Failed firewood.

Can't add much to that list - although I have seen one (can't remember if it was real or copy) which had been converted to string-through-body. IMO Hipshot's the best choice, unless you're one of the .0005% of players who make use of the mutes. As well as giving you individual string height & spacing, lack of the mute assembly makes pick playing easier and allows for palm muting, which is borderline impossible with the standard tailpiece. It's also the only option which doesn't require drilling new holes or any other mods. Put one on my Kasuga Faker & it's a great piece of kit.

Same tuners on the black one, part of the reason I think it's possibly Chushin, like the CMI. Thanks, much better pics, @HK. - it's possible to see the finish deterioration & binding delamination on the black one. Could be a sign of possible water/damp damage, but without different images it's not possible to tell how severe - or hopefully superficial - the damage is. It may well be the bass is structurally sound. Actually I'm now wondering if the black one's been refinished at some point - I've seen similar paint cracking on old spraycan refins, and like I said, I'm confident that white stripe's been added. I'm less concerned by the high-ish action on the FG one now I can see there's plenty of adjustment left to lower the bridge - makes it more likely to be just a truss rod in need of adjustment. These two basses will have conventional single truss rods, not the strange dual strips of bent steel used by Rickenbacker on 4001s at the time! On the whole the FG bass looks very tidy, aside from the (very common) tail-lift, I can't see a great deal wrong. Question for @prowla - d'you think those look like genuine plexi trcs on these basses - particularly the FG, with the additional text? If so those would be pretty sought-after these days.

Depends what you mean! There were no 100% accurate copies, and all of them can suffer from the same issues (the 'banana-neck' syndrome @prowla mentions above) to a greater or lesser extent - as can real Rickenbackers. What's good is that if we're right about the two you're interested in being Chushin-made examples, these appear to be some of the sturdiest and most aesthetically accurate - they very seldom suffer from the neck bending issue, and are built to accurate Rick proportions, unlike some of the others. Worth mentioning that the bolt-neck copies suffer less from neck issues, as the construction means necks can be shimmed to rectify/minimise problems in that area. If you're a Facebook user, you should join this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/78514186083 Basically a repository of knowledge & info about Rick copies across the world & the ages!

Ibanez & Univox came from two separate manufacturers, both are easy to ID, and these basses aren't the same as either. Two main differences between the Ibanez you linked (a model 2388B) & the FG bass you're looking at - first the Ibby's a bolt-neck, secondly it has checked binding which the other one doesn't. Ibanez Fakers were made by Fujigen Gakki & there were many design tweaks during the life of the models, (through-neck & bolt) which ran approximately from 1971-1978, but they all featured the same tight-patterned checked binding, which was unique to the Fujigen-made basses. There are other differences but they're hard to point out in the pics you have. There's unfortunately no way of knowing what the original brands were - I presume you're not in the UK, so what's most likely is that they will have originally had had a name used by an importer/distributor local to you. Very few brands on 70s MIJ guitars are anything to do with the manufacturer - and that includes well-known names like Ibanez, Greco or Univox. The basses you're looking at were sold under potentially hundreds of different names worldwide - I've seen them as Shaftesbury, El Maya, JHS, Cimar, CMI, & various others. You mention a lawsuit - this is a massive myth in the history of 1970s Japanese copies, and the truth is no lawsuit ever took place. What happened was that in 1977, Gibson's then parent company Norlin made threats towards the US operation of Ibanez' parent company, Hoshino, regarding the headstock shape of their Gibson copies. No legal action took place as Hoshino had changed the design of their headstocks a year earlier. Absolutely nothing else happened, no-one sued anyone, no other manufacturers were involved - and don't believe anyone who tells you different!

Nothing to do with Ibanez - those have features that make them really easy to ID that neither of these two have. Although that doesn't matter, the MIJ copies are all desirable/collectable & all similarly good quality. Agree with @prowla that the FG is likely from the factory which made Shaftesbury - these are thought to have been made by Chushin Gakki & probably date from the mid 70s. Harder to tell with the black one but if it's through-neck (looks like it has the binding gap so 99.5% it is), I'd be inclined to think it might be the same bass in a different colour - the tuners on that are the type you'd expect to see on the Chushin basses - I'm inclined to think they've been swapped on the FG one. The white stripe is not original - I'll stick my neck out & say no Fakers had that. If there's any chance you could provide clearer/better pics then me & @prowla could probably give you more info - although from what I can tell these both look worth getting hold of, if Rick copies are your thing!

Boggles the mind how someone can attempt to assemble a Fender-style bitsa - possibly the one of the least challenging challenges in the history of challenges - and get absolutely everything quite so cataclysmically wrong. That in itself must be a unique talent.

Forgot all about that one! I had the 4-string T-34 - bought it off someone on BC about 8 or 9 years ago for the exact same reason. Amazing finish but incredibly hard to get a good pic. Never got the chance to gig it but it looked lovely hanging on the wall in direct sunlight! Lost mine in a partial trade for a concrete garage/workshop base when we moved house a couple of years later.

Aria STB-GT, from about 15 years or so ago. Basically a P/J/MM hybrid. Think these were £250/£300-odd new, found mine on Ebay for £100. Absolutely unmarked, but had an issue where the battery drains if not removed, presumably an issue with the jack but I couldn't find the fault & ended up wiring it passive. Should maybe stick a Retrovibe Stinger pre in it one day. They were never particularly common so not many around these days. If I remember there was a 5 string version too.

That's quite eye-catching at first glance. Realistically, you can't help but have some (possibly misplaced) respect for that level of ambition in both the execution and the marketing of a £90 bass with a Dulux refin. Edit - what the actual f*ck is going on with that bridge???

No question the neck's genuine - although that string tree's not original! The only way you'd be able to have much idea about the body would probably be neck pocket fit, and whether the neck's had to have new holes drilled - it's unlikely the originals would line up correctly with a replacement body.

It really doesn't have a single original idea - P shaped body, skinny maple/blocks J neck and Stingray pickup & EQ! Somehow it all works though, it's a lovely thing to play & really doesn't look or feel like the budget bass it is. Yeah. That's what I thought - this was a Crack Converters blag where I thought - a Laurus/Marleaux lookey-likey for £150? How bad can it be? As it turned out, very!

All the time, probably my main criterion for any bass purchase ever. And that's a lot of basses. Couple of examples, one good: And one absolutely bloody awful: The Lottery Of Functionality aspect might well be a factor in the whole thing, but I don't know. I just like shiny stuff.

Closest I came was a pair of 90s Ibby SR800s, fretted & fretless. Both lovely basses I shouldn't have sold.

Certainly is - a slightly later CMI with the logo revised to reflect the cursive 'M' from the Marshall logo. Much as I like my old MIJ copies, that's as close to a piece of low-end junk as they get. I've had similar, if not 100% identical, & if I was flogging that I'd consider myself lucky to get £100 for it. Seller deserves some recognition for possibly the most delusionally ambitious BIN I think I've ever seen!

You might have to modify your own running order - the Rick 4003 dates from 1981, its predecessor the 4001 was first available in 1961, and the original single-pickup 4000 appeared in 1957. The first Ibby SRs appeared in 1987.

Indeed - everyone has influences (it's hardly overstating to say we all learn by copying) but to suggest there's little left but plagiarism, or at best subconscious recycling seems like a massive expression of negative defeatism.

I've noticed a tendency to bin perfectly good torque-adjustable tuners because they were slipping, & the person didn't understand that they were perfectly good torque-adjustable tuners & they could have just adjusted the torque to stop them slipping.

If you're expected to just note-for-note a pre-existing bass part & not have any input of your own, I suppose it amounts to the same thing. Is that all original music, or just that produced by sad little wannabe local artists? 🤔

Originals, by a big margin. The caveat is that for most of the bands I've been in, I've been the main writer/co-writer - so obviously I have an attachment to & belief in the material that probably wouldn't be there if I was just playing bass on someone else's songs. On the other hand I find covers sets hard work - learning & rehearsing them feels like a chore and gigging them rapidly becomes stale and repetitive. I suppose it's only reasonable though - 99.9% of paying gigs I've had have been covers so it's only right it should feel like a job!