LeftyJ

Our previous queen was driven around in one of these, until she had it replaced with a stretched Volvo S80 of the first generation:

Agreed. And the square-cornered control plate. I hate it just as badly on real Höfners, it would look so much better with rear-routed access to the pots and wiring and direct-mount pots.

They're Fender-owned, so that's one down

Oooooh, that top one in that gloss finish, but with the black hardware of the one below! That would look incredible.

Of all the things I have GAS for at the moment, the most persistent is for a fun lefty shortscale. Top of my GAS-list would be this Atelier Z Baby Z:

Poor Leno - Royksopp

Some great suggestions in this thread! Cort, Crafter and Tanglewood are great for the money, especially used. I'm not familiar with Vintage acoustics, but I like their electrics and basses. Art & Lutherie is indeed great too, and I'd like to add their sister brand Seagull. I own a Crafter D7L dreadnought with a solid cedar top that I like a lot. It plays and sounds great, and looks and feels very solidly built. I've had it for over 10 years now and even though I don't play it much (I grab my Taylor GS Mini most often) it's not going anywhere any time soon I'd like to underline @Skybone's suggestion to look for a solid top! They really do tend to sound better, and will only improve over time.

I used to own an Italia Torino bass that will get you close soundwise (semi-hollow with a big, bold mudbucker in the neck position) but it has a single cutaway bodyshape and an added bridge pickup (a guitar humbucker in a closed chrome cover).

That would be Mark D Phillips. The same guy that changes 7-string guitars into wide-necked 6-strings for ham-fisted people, and who butchers cheap Gear4music B-stock acoustics into "thumb style" guitars. He's been going at this for years, and his work is just plain awful. Search for his name on the forum and you'll find plenty more of this type of junk https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/mdphillips1956mark/m.html?item=193840192221&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Nice Cort Artisan B5 fretless: https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/left-handed-bass-guitar-cort-b5fl/1387424366 It's an older one, with the old two-piece bridge assembly (I'm guessing late 1990s). Those wenge necks are brilliant, far better than you'd expect for the price.

That's a Corvette Standard, not a $$ or a Jazzman. It's nice, but it's the entry level model as far as German Corvettes go, and in my opinion this pickup configuration and position is very conservative and Jazz Bass-like, and not what I associate with typical Warwick. It has the Just-a-nut 2 which was not nearly as good as the all-brass, individually adjustable J-a-n 1 and the J-a-n 3. However, it is the active version with stacked bass and treble controls, which is nice. It also appears to have the desirable full wenge neck in the pictures, despite the description saying it has ovangkol with a wenge fingerboard. The description says nickel silver frets, but they appear to be proper bell brass. Looks like the seller copied the specs of a more recent one, but I would say this one is from around 2000. Could be a lovely bass! Could be worth asking for a picture of the back of the headstock, it will help determine the neck wood and it will show you the serial number with the year of production. I'm sure you can do better on the price. I paid only 500 euros for my used 2003 Streamer LX5 around 10 years ago, and just yesterday I had a 2001 Streamer LX 4-string delivered to me that I also paid 500 for. It can be done 🙂

Exactly what you would expect from a wooden neck I've made some minor adjustments to my S2 Classic necks when I switched string gauges, and the necks responded quickly and did exactly what I wanted.

* waits for NBD thread to pop up *

To get closer to a J sound on the neck pickup, it might be worth considering installing a series/parallel switch. The parallel setting is only subtly different from series (ask anyone with a Fender Precision with the S-1 switch) but a bit thinner and weaker in output, which evens out the balance between the two pickups and gets you closer to a J-sound.

"No less than 100.000 carbon fibres Jim!" "Wow Mike, isn't it amazing?" "But wait, there's more!"

Wow, that must be a really early Status Series 2, with those exposed pole piece GMT pickups! Beautiful.

Bro Hymn - Pennywise (whoa oh oh)

That price is insane. This very bass has regularly been popping up on the Dutch site Marktplaats.nl for a price between 1000 and 1300 euros and proved a very tough sell - but was never advertised internationally at that time. The last seller I saw it from was a guy in Ezinge in the north of the Netherlands who had bought it for a project and didn't need it anymore. I believe he was asking 1100-1200 euros, up until just a few weeks ago.

GAS for a lefty Dingwall Combustion or NG3 (they don't make the Canadian models in lefty). Haven't laid hands on one yet, but I know of a store here in the Netherlands that stocks three, that I'd like to pay a visit to some time in the near future when stores re-open. Can't afford one right now, and so far see no point in spending 2500 euros on a bass made in China, but I really want to give one a go. I did, however, buy a 2001 Warwick Streamer LX yesterday for a great price! Should be arriving tomorrow with DHL. It's going to keep my 2003 Streamer LX5 company. It has an ovangkol neck like my 5-string, not the more desirable and slimmer wenge neck. It does, however, have the old brass Just-a-Nut 1 with the individually adjustable string height. I'm really looking forward to it, I've never played a 4-string Warwick and I've never played a bass with a reverse splitcoil before. Can't wait to get my hands on it ☺️

Yep, the old American Deluxe used to! (until 2009) Can be found used within OP's budget.

Commonly referred to as the ESP c*ckstock. I like the look though, had one on a ESP Horizon guitar.

Or maybe you just need to think bigger That would be an FNA Jazzman, not a Corvette - even though they look the same. For some reason, they named it differently. It was originally called Altus, but they had to change the name because there was already a violin manufacturer by that name. Legend has it FNA stands for "Formerly Named Altus" or even "F***ing Not Altus".

Always a good idea! And you can probably find one used for less than that Rockbass costs new.

Probably served as inspiration, yes The TRBX is the successor (and more or less a merge) of two earlier series, the TRB and the RBX (which copies a LOT from the Soundgear series). The headstock shape you pictured originates from the TRB series, which was introduced in 1997, 10 years after the first Soundgear.