Brother Jones

I suspect there is a really serious strategic problem for companies like Fender. One analogy is hifi equipment. One of Britain's most famous hifi brands, Naim Audio, makes integrated amps, preamps and power amps that they have been able to service over the years. As a result, their entire output for several decades is still out there doing great service, with a thriving second hand market. Fender have similar issues. If your products are good enough that they don't end up as landfill - or the opposite, actually appreciate in value - sooner or later that is going to affect your new product. If you know what you're doing in either case, buying new makes less and less sense as the years go by. This is especially true in sectors where either technology has simply ceased to deliver something that is of greater value (possibly the case with hifi amps), or where the vintage nature of the product is the secret to its appreciation (Fender basses).

I hate to appear contrary, but...why does it have to be unlined? I've played fretless a lot, live, studio, you name it. And yes, side dots, muscle memory are very helpful. But so are lines. Even Jaco had lines.

Nickel wounds all the way here - on my 98 US Deluxe, and my 97 Jap reissue (Clarky's old black one), and, perhaps more surprisingly, on the Squier VMJ fretless. When I were a lad in the eighties it was all 30-90 ultra light, ultra bright. Now I can't stand that clanky sound, but equally I'll never be a flatwound person. So if I'm feeling flush, it's DR Sunbeams, and if not whatever the D'Addario equivalent nickel is. All 45-105, obviously.

I'm about 90% that the 1985 Hohner Jazz that my folks bought me for Xmas that year had through-body stringing. It also definitely had 21 frets. The Arbor series was a little later - 88 or so - when the company started making the Jack (one of which also came my way).

A black one of these was also my first bass (an abysmal Kay shortscale notwithstanding) - an Xmas present from my parents. It had the same maple board and tort guard. My dad took me up to Denmark St and I picked it out because it had two pickups and wasn't too expensive. It was £85, and this was Xmas '85.