Bassassin

A BC thread experiencing topic-drift? Shirley not! Afraid I can't help - my speculation above is the best reason I can come up with!

A 60s Japanese gold foil pickup, highly sought-after by proponents of lo-fi music who consider its inherent tendency for shrill, tinny audio, plus buzzing and microphonic squealing to be 'authentic' and somehow desirable qualities in a musical instrument: 70s Korean pickups based on a similar design and possessing similar 'musical' properties, presumably hailing from a culture where it was easier to source infill material from contemporary vehicle upholstery than from discarded fag packets. I hope this helps. Seriously, I do.

When I had mine I did briefly toy with the idea of buying a pack of 20 Benson & nicking the foil to replace the fake leather - obviously the fags would go straight in the bin. Hardly worth twice what I'd paid for the guitar though!

Sites like Fetishguitars & Cheesyguitars (which deals with mostly Eastern European stuff) are rabbit holes where you can lose any semblance of sanity, should you choose to enter. Or maybe 'wormholes' would be more apt, as it's a whole different dimension down there...

Dug around a bit & while I can't find a good pic, it seems some versions of this have a single saddle (basically a bit of bent plate) with overall intonation adjusted by a pair of screws which moves the whole thing - I'd guess that's what this has. Other versions, which I'd assume are later, have Tele bass type 2-saddle bridges with a different cover. String spacing's clearly an issue - could you use a vintage type BBOT with threaded saddles, that might allow a bit of control over spacing. Also I keep seeing these things on Ebay - obviously intended for hipster cigar-box junk, but if the spacing's really tight, it might work. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224839471203

Yeah but no but. I don't really know much about 60s stuff, and even less about Italian 60s stuff. However I'm quite good at Google, and have a few relevant bookmarks so I can now tell you this is a rebadged Welson. Scroll to the bottom of this page & there are a bunch of variants of this bass, with a bunch of different brands. None are exactly the same but you could easily knock up a Dynacord Texas out of the bits: https://www.fetishguitars.com/welson/welson-vedette-and-the-like/

Lack of gold foil (bits of black fake leather instead) suggests not!

I had that minus the frets. Also that, only in metallic blue. I've sold a lot of basses I didn't miss in the slightest. Not those two, though.

SRs have been around since the late 80s, if I remember, all the early ones had standard sized P/J pickups. They are active though, so won't sound like a passive P/J without bypassing the active circuitry.

It's interesting - Thunder 1As are still very common basses, there are always plenty in circulation and it's always seemed that tends to keep prices down compared with other, less common comparable 80s MIJ basses. Ebay tends to be a good barometer, and having had a quick look, it still is. Sold item prices go from £135 at the bottom end up to £380 - those are very much outliers and the median's about £200 or so. 10-15 years ago the average ballpark was about £150 so they're not exactly appreciating fast. There are always sellers with ambitious pricing, and occasionally someone will bite - I'd say £295 for a 1A is very much the lucky side of average. The guitars tend to go for a bit more, interestingly,the average seeming to be getting near the £300 mark. This is galling, considering my own very nice Thunder 1 only fetched £150 when I flipped it. Was a great guitar & I probably should have hung on to it. Having said that, it cost me £6 from the local car boot, so I can't moan too much.

That better be true - I just had the most chronologically depressing birthday of my life a couple of weeks ago! Got a PS5 though, so it's not all bad!

As far as I know all the SB basses were built at Matsumoku, up until the factory closed in 1987. There is room for speculation, though - there's a myth that Aria & Aria Pro II were Matsumoku-exclusive brands, but during the 70s 'copy era' there are numerous examples of instruments built by Kasuga Gakki and Fujigen Gakki, and it's quite likely other factories were used too. However with the advent of Aria's original designs, there's no evidence suggesting high-end models like the Elites & SB-Rs were built anywhere else. Given that they were built to very specific designs it would probably hard to tell - it's also a myth that Matsumoku was inherently a higher-quality manufacturer than its competitors. It's possible you're thinking of the post-Matsumoku SB basses, such as the SB-ELT model which appeared in 1988/9. It's basically an Elite II/SB-R80 with some minor differences in electronics & dimensions, and it's not clear where these were made, or even if they're Japanese - they bear no serial numbers or production details. The quality is very, very high though, I have one of these and also a 1983 SB Elite I Black & Gold - they are on a par build-wise, and I'd say some of the detailing such as the fretboard inlays is tidier on the later SB-ELT. With these the general consensus is that they're Japanese, and it's been suggested that Tokai Gakki undertook top-end Aria manufacture after Matsumoku closed, although I can't find any solid evidence to support that. By the time these were being made, Korean factories like Cort, Samick & Young-Chang were perfectly capable of manufacturing to as high a standard as the Japanese builders, so it's possible they're MIK.

The SB Elite I is a Matsumoku bass, as is the Elite II and the very similar SB-R60 and SB-R80 models.

Was actually pretty cool - it's clear acrylic with the design printed/painted on the back. Probably the best thing about it, to be fair.

Korean-made cheapo from the late 70s, I think made by Cort. Not a catalogue bass, Eros was a brand owned by UK distributor Rosetti, mostly starter/midrange electrics. I had what was pretty much the guitar version of this a few years back (£6.50 from my local car boot) and it looks like the bass is essentially the same neck/body but with different hardware. If you can make it play OK it might be a fun little curiosity, & a lot of people these days seem to like this sort of lo-fi approach. Certainly worth giving it a wipe down, a squirt of switch cleaner & maybe even some new strings. Here's the guitar I had, definitely part of the same family.

Saddles look pretty slammed to me - loads of protruding thread on the adjusters. Inclined to think the neck's bowed - the strings appear to be fairly distant from the board in the (admittedly blurry) pic showing the fretboard edge up to about the 4th fret. Might not be all that's going on, I've seen a good few Ricks (& accurate copies) with that collapsy neck pickup route thing going on.

Honourable mention for Ronnie James Dio, who played bass & sang in all the bands he fronted prior to Rainbow.

Better late than never etc! According to my mysterious, never-to-be-disclosed sources, that's a Maya (not fancy enuff to be an El Maya, sorry!) EB-2, and is exactly the same bass, apart from the name & maybe the colour, as the Grant I started on.

Sanding's less likely to damage the lacquer on the headstock sides, although it's more time consuming. Mask off bits you're not sanding so they don't get scratched. Re-lacquering is straightforward using decent rattlecan spray, although again, it's time-consuming - you have to build up lots of thin coats, (I'd say at least 10) allowing drying between each. Then leave it 10 days to a fortnight to cure before using something like T-Cut to flat the lacquer & get a proper gloss. Also bear in mind that the wood under the headstock paint may well be paler than the fretboard if they've cheated a bit with the roasted neck!

Oh, I do like that - got a Charvel Surfcaster-y look to it, only with a far less vile scratchplate. Tele headstock ftw though. Preferably upside-down. I think I want one. Assuming it actually exists, that is.

I think it's certainly influenced by 60s Japanese designs - as is Kawai's Sleekline:

So you've broken away from 'Kays - Underappreciated National Treasures Society' at last, then! The remaining member will be heartbroken.

Found a big pic on Reverb - metal badge, looks like it's glued on rather than pinned. Interesting, this one has the tulip body but has a strip ply neck rather than single piece of timber. https://reverb.com/uk/item/2095365-kay-shortscale-tulip-bass-early-seventies-sunburst

Agree with Mr Del Var there - that's pretty good for one of these. I don't know them too well but this might be a Japanese example rather than the seemingly more common Taiwanese Kays - I'm not sure the proper tulip style bodies were used on the Taiwan Kays, and I would have expected ply, either on body or neck. Thumbrest's definitely not original, (it's a tug bar that's been moved from the other side) but the bridge cover is - and they hardly ever still have them fitted.