Bassassin

Looks like a great bass for the money, Fenix have a deservedly excellent reputation and clearly there are still bargains out there. There's a Fenix guitars FB group where you should be able to find answers to any questions about the bass - I'm confident they'll recommend that you buy it anyway! https://www.facebook.com/groups/128212226340 However it does look like the controls are volume, tone & pickup selector. Just a personal thing, but for me I would probably re-wire it with an individual volume for each pickup, & dispense with the selector - I find it useful to be able to blend the pickups, rather than just switch between them.

That price seems surprisingly reasonable, particularly from a dealer. Lots of SBVs available from Japanese sellers but prices are insane, particularly considering shipping & import fees on top. https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=sbv500&_sacat=0

Always had a bit of GAS for Epi's Thunderbird Pro (the through-neck stripey active one), but never wanted a 'proper' T-Bird. I deeply regret missing a Pro for £100 on my local FB ads - just have to keep telling myself it was probably nicked!

That's an HP1216 - very high-end MIJ, despite being a Hondo, possibly a Chushin Gakki build if the bridge is any indication. Matey might think it's unique & worth a grand but this one in It'ly is a bit more realistically priced: https://reverb.com/item/32293146-hondo-professional-bass-hp1216-vintage-year-1981-made-in-japan-matsumoku-factory

That's a stunner, looks like superb craftsmanship. Looks in great condition - component choice (Schaller bridge & tuners) suggest it's not particularly new, possibly 80s. It would be good to have back views so you could see the construction. Style-wise not to my taste, but it's beautifully done.

Dave Brock still plays his (very Hawkwinded) Westone Speccy, as far as I know.

I would definitely refinish the body - it looks like the victim of a dirty protest in the prison music room! Much as I'm not a fan of shonky logos, I'd leave the headstock - a previous owner's put a lot of patience & a degree of artistry into labelling it as something it blatantly isn't, and that's a nice touch of history imo, as is the original dealer sticker on the back. It's originally had a pin badge (the holes are visible if you look closely) and in fairness there's zero chance of finding a replacement, even if you could be sure what it was. I also think I'd reinstate the bridge pickup it's had at some point, maybe using a stack pot to wire it v/v/t.

Looks like you'd get away with slightly wider spacing without risking the strings hanging off the edges of the fretboard up the dusty end. An alternative would be a bridge with adjustable spacing, like a Schaller 3D, if you can find one for a sensible price.

Ibanez & Columbus versions would absolutely not have been the same instruments, despite looking similar. Ibanez was a Fujigen product and Columbus was probably Chushin or the collaborative group I mentioned earlier. Big difference in quality, there are other details but Fujigen never used ply for bodies so this definitely wasn't an Ibanez.

Low to midrange early 70s Japanese shortscale plywood Tele type, manufacturer unclear but none of the 'big' names - possibly a Matsumoto Gakki Seizou Kumiai collaborative build, but no-one really knows with this sort of early copy-era stuff. As far as this example's concerned - ghastly boot-polish refin & a non-original bridge, where somebody has inexplicably replaced a Tele-style two saddle unit with an infinitely more useless EB-0 type. Things like this may have been sold branded Jedson, but Teisco never made anything remotely like it, in fact by the time this was made they were long-gone.

Turned my snobby rockist nose up at them back in the day - but they're great musicians, great songwriters & George is a teriffic singer.

Interesting there's no mention of a Kossoff connection on the shop's website listing. I suppose this kind of guff is easy to reel off as a bullsh!t sales pitch when anyone who might be in a position to verify or otherwise is dead. Who - me, cynical?

But, but, but, according to the seller this is how it was when he bought it, apparently in 1985, when they were neither vintage nor rare. In fact at the time the likes of this was held in sufficiently low esteem that it's it's not entirely unreasonable to assume the original neck was chucked on the fire, being the only actual wood (eg not plywood) used in the construction of yer Avon EB-0 copy. It's a conundrum, alright.

That headstock's properly weird. Definitely a replacement neck, think it might well be home-made. Looks like rough mahogany with a thin finish in the neckplate pic. But why would anyone bother?

Would be interesting to know what that same bass would go for on the Japanese equivalent of Gumtree, rather than an Ebay trader trying to sell to a global collector's market. I doubt it'd be anywhere near £1400! There's a curiously increasing trend in genuinely crazy prices from Japanese sellers. Apropos of absolutely nothing at all* - apparently Matsumoku was the first guitar manufacturer in the world to introduce CNC manufacture, at some point in the mid 70s. *Which like all unconfirmed MIJ-related factoids, might just be absolute b0ll0cks made up by some random Ebay gouger (not me) trying to flog their latest bit of £5 car boot tat.** **Such as this: It did need some work, but yes, £5 from the local car boot.

It's just a badly-designed tuner unit, I assume Paul used these on his headless builds because there wasn't much available that was affordable at the time he was making these. I had an identical unit on a bass I owned a couple of years ago, the flaw in the design is that the tuners use a geared system to wind the strings around a cam to produce tension, rather than a simple straight pull like most headless tuners. This means it's stiff to begin with & the more windings there are around the cam the higher the gearing becomes, making it increasingly stiffer & less accurate. It works best with as few windings as possible around the cams, but to be fair it's a stupid idea badly executed - and ridiculously over-engineered! This is the bass I had: If I'd hung onto it I'd have seriously thought about looking at fitting a different tuning system.

Yammy Flying Banana! Not sure I've seen a bass version before, those lovely knockoff gougers at Eastwood do an overpriced copy of the guitar. These are pretty pricey these days, not very common & often north of £600 when they do turn up. Makes me wish I'd picked up the one I saw for £70 in Crack Converters a few years back. But I thought - I don't need two, do I?

That's a gorgeous little thing. Don't need it. Don't need it. Don't need it...

Typically Westone Thunder 1 & 1As still go for around £150-£200, which is pretty reasonable for a vintage Matsumoku bass - but they are plentiful and bomb-proof, and unlike many of the lower-cost basses from that era, very few of them seemed to have ended up in a landfill - for very good reason. There are often unrealistically expensive listings on Ebay but they tend to go unsold, month in, month out. I think it looks like your experience with a badly set-up example has prejudiced your opinion of what's still a very good-quality and affordable bass.

Gould was a sort of Westfield/Stagg-ish starter/midrange brand from about 15 or so years back - I remember a shop local to me stocked them & had these Mosrite types. I did like the look of them but never actually played one. I was quite impressed by the set neck/bound body on a cheapish bass, iirc they were under £200 new. I did play a couple of Goulds when my daughter was after a first guitar (LP & PRS copies) and they seemed decent enough for the money/basic shop setup, which might or might not be any help! Around the same time Aria did a reissue of their old Hi-Flier Mosrite type - I have played one of these & might've bought it if I'd had the spare cash at the time.

Might be an idea to create a separate identity for the originals 'version' of the band - different name, look etc, and use the covers gigs to promote it. I was in a pub covers duo that was basically 2/3 of my originals band - me & the guitarist + pre-recorded drums/keys, both singing. We had a different name, identity & audience to the originals band but we chose two short, catchy originals that fit well with the covers as a teaser/taster for the 'proper' band. We managed to get a reasonable crossover from the pub punters for our originals band.

Looks great - the only thing better would be...

I think you touch on a relevant point here. Is Black Metal technically worship music?

That's ghastly, but at least looks halfway realistic.

That's awful. Like the worst Squier Affinity vs. idiot with belt sander botch job you've ever seen. Beggars belief a that a proper luthier/custom shop would turn out such a mess, even more so that anyone would part with cash for it. Hideous.