Bassassin

Dug mine out - forgot I'd already tidied it up & nailed it back together. Neck doesn't look as bad as I remember, but no strings, so how/if it plays is anyone's guess!

Pah. If they'd done their homework they could've said it was £500.

I've got one of these, in bits. Mine's identical apart from the tuners (which I think have been swapped on this) and colour of the pickup bobbins. Didn't pay much for mine which is just as well, as it turned out to have a warped neck, so it got sidelined among Things I Can't Be Arsed Dealing With, where it's remained for a number of years. The body's solid mahogany, but a few mm thinner than a proper J, so it's fairly light. Pickups designed to be hidden under ashtrays, like a lot of early J copies, and would be hard to replace without routing. No s/n on mine but I think these are probably '72/3 or so. The seller's assuming '76 from the number on his, but Mats serials from this era are random & can't be used to date them. If it plays well & the electronics work, £120 for the FB one's probably an OK deal for an old Mats Jazz. Needs knobs & a pot but that's not a deal breaker on something like this. And if anyone wants to make an offer for my pile of bits - I am but a PM away...

If it's like my Cheapo SuperStrat, that G4M logo's just printed over the finish and should come off with some T-Cut & a bit of persistence. If you're bothered by such things.

Not vintage, or Japanese. Or headless, for that matter. Looks like a modern Chinese cheapo, a bit grubby. In more ways than one.

That's really interesting - it looks like a more upmarket version of this 1980-ish budget through-neck P type, also made by Samick, sold branded Satellite in the UK. A quick dig around came up with a single P version of your bass: And a link to a listing of the actual bass you have (same grain patterns) with its original DiMarzio knockoff bridge, and a clearer pic of those odd pickups. Are you sure they're not original? If they're not, the bass has been professionally routed to fit the J-type unit. I don't recognise the logos & a reverse image search doesn'r come up with anything similar. Anyone else recognise these? I think you're right that this is from the late 70s/early 80s era, and the problem is that Samick was almost 100% an OEM manufacturer at the time, so there are very few examples or records of what they sold under their own name - the earliest catalogue I can find is 1987, and there's nothing like this there.

Looks the same as it always has to me, maybe a little shorter & broader but barely a redesign. It's still gopping.

That is extraordinary and I want one. That is all.

I bid on one of those years ago - didn't get it but it was a bit cheaper than this one. Don't think I've seen another since. I think it's made by Cort in Korea, mid 80s. Looks like a close relative of this odd Hohner Professional that I did manage to win (for buttons) around 10 years ago. Has the same headstock shape too.

Smooth off all the angular edges (and that weird pyramid on the top bout!) and I'd quite like that. Makes a change from another bloody Precision.

That may be ever-so-slightly optimistic! Unless the cab's stuffed with contraband gold or diamonds, it looks like the seller's accidentally added an extra '0' to the price! A couple of ER40 heads have recently sold for a sub-£300 best offer.

Drugs. Probably really dodgy acid. It's the only explanation that makes any sort of sense.

On MIK instruments I think so - I had an E serial MIK Squier Bullet which turned out to be YC, and AFAIK Samick use the S serial prefix on everything, regardless of brand.

Always liked the look of the SRXes. Think they were intended to be a more metal-oriented take on the SoundGear series - never played one but they look a bit less svelte than the standard light & skinny SRs.

I think this is a Young-Chang bass, iirc they took over the Squier contract from Fujigen when manufacture started moving to Korea. Didn't know there were MIK Fenders from this era, though. Young-Chang lost the Squier contract when they started selling the same instruments under their own Fenix brand - which also have E-prefix serials but don't appear to date in line with the Squiers, or indeed Fenders. Apropos of nowt, this has Gotoh GB1 tuners, as used on many '80s MIJ Squiers & Fenders.

This is my first-ever guitar, which I bought second-hand in 1980: What might come as something of a surprise, is that it did not originally look like that. "Surely not!!!", I hear you you squeal in shocked surprise. But no - it's true. It did suffer what can best be described as a mishap, involving some superficial decaptiation, which unfortunately necessitated the mild modifications you can see, in order to rectify the matter. Originally it looked like this, so as you can see it is barely altered from its original design. The bass I've owned for longest is this, which I bought new in 1984, from Allan-Gordon Music in Wathamstow. And this is it, being used in anger by an annoyingly skinny & youthful Moi. Can't say my dress sense has improved greatly, tbh.

Also an SS300, which was Yamaha's 80s take on the Samurai shape - MIJ, in great condition, ridiculously rare & half the price of the Taiwan-made SBV500. Odd. Apropos of nothing, the high-end, through-neck version of this, the SC600, has been on my OHMYGODIWANTTHAT list for many, many years. They don't come up & I wouldn't be able to afford one if it did!

The only non-Status Status I've encountered before is an early 70s Japanese Jazz copy (which oddly, turns up in an old Jedson catalogue) which pre-dates Rob Green's output by about a decade. And lest we forget - his basses were originally called 'Strata' - until Fender noticed & took issue with the first syllable - so neither of these other Status brands are anything to do with Rob. Having had a quick look, these 'Status Series' things do just look like generic 90s-ish budget copies, possibly Korean-made if you're lucky. There's not too much out there but the few pics & mentions all seem to originate from Australia (as does the OP) which suggests it was an Australian importer/distributor using the name.

It is. But £800? See what I mean by silly prices? Really makes me wish I'd bought the one I saw in a local Crack Converters for £150 a few years back. I might've, if it hadn't been the same colour as mine...

Exactly how I've frequently described mine! Had one of these for a while, such a playable, surprisingly well-balanced & great-sounding bass. As well as looking amazing! Getting pretty hard to find now, sometimes very silly prices when they come up, too.

The controls (if I remember!) are separate for each neck, 2x master v & t, & 3-way microswitch pickup selector. Plus a toggle to switch between necks. Always thought co-axial volumes would be a good upgrade, so you could blend the pickups. The necks/scales are identical so it would be easy enough to swap them - fretless on top suits me so I never tried. It's as well-made as you'd expect from a hand-crafted bass, & the fretless neck is especially nice - but it's a slightly cumbersome & very, very heavy lump! It did get me to the point of starting to design what would be my ideal fretted/fretless twin-neck, basically by listing the things I don't much like about this!

I've got this. Bought it for my now-defunct prog band, where fretless would've been nice in parts of a couple of songs. Sadly hasn't been out of its case in several years! It's a 1985 Gordy Blueshift, and was a one-off, as far as I could find out.

Bloody hell! Looks like a horribly modded manufactured neck fitted to a home-bodged body. I'm guessing the neck must have a tenon sitting in a slot in the body, & the screws that actually hold it together are hidden under the neckplate. Nice bridge & tuners though, I guess...

Always liked Antigua, but then, I have no taste. Quite relieved there's no Jazz. And I definitely don't need another Strat. Do I? That's no SnotBurst! This is SnotBurst - or more accurately, SnotGlo.

Yep, it's the same bass as the Ebay one! Yours - MIJ, 1987 - would have been the last Matsumoku version before the factory closed that year. This one's '88 so almost certainly Korean, probably using most of the original hardware/electronics from the Japanese production, with the body & neck being MIK. That would account for minor differences.