ikay

As Apothem says, it's all down to the hollow saddle which is only threaded in the lower half and has limited adjustability. Why MM decided to bring reintroduce this for the Classic and new Special is one of life's great mysteries. There was a good reason it was changed in 1989!

Here are a couple of recent sales on ebay to give you an idea of price, one bass and one guitar, both look to be in pretty good condition: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/old-vox-clubman-bass-Guitar/383612338964?hash=item595113c314:g:LfgAAOSwsQNe-z4A https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vox-Clubman-II-Guitar/264836831118?hash=item3da981578e:g:lEIAAOSw~k5fNVGY

It looks like a 60s Vox Clubman - https://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/vox/bass/1965_Clubman.php Tuners look a bit odd, maybe they're not original?

Get out your drill...!

The first 20 secs or so of this vid (not mine) demonstrates how vol/tone varies with strings directly over or between the polepieces. Smoother and slightly less volume between the poles (hence Old Smoothie), more focused and more volume when over the poles. When he pulls the pickup across the strings at 16secs it's clearer to hear.

Whether pole alignment causes any difference depends to some degree on how close the pickup is to the strings. If the pickup is set lower, the magnetic field is weaker but more evenly spread. If the pickup is closer to the strings, the magnetic field is more concentrated and any string to string differences are magnified. Lowering the pickup can sometimes be a better solution for overall string-to-string balance issues rather than raising it.

They have changed the pole spacing on the new Stingray Specials. The pole pieces now line up with the strings. This should help rectify the G string issue as the response of an off-axis string is slightly 'thinner'.

+1 about avoiding an over-scooped EQ. The chart below of the freq response curve for a Stingray 2-band clearly shows the mid scoop with bass and treble maxed. The centre of this mid scoop falls around 200 to 800Hz which just happens to be G string territory. The G string frequency ranges from 98Hz (open) to 196Hz (octave) to 392Hz (2 octave). In practice the first harmonic is usually more dominant than the fundamental so the 'effective fundamental' freq range of the G string is double this - ie. from 196Hz (open) to 784Hz (2 octave). Slap bang in the scoop. The G string does of course generate other higher harmonics but these will sound thinner and weedier than the fundamental. Mind the scoop!

That's a lovely pair, if you don't mind me saying 😄. I had a fretless Mouse for a few years and often wondered what a fretted one would sound like. Can't find any fretted demos on youtube. Would be interesting to hear some sound clips if you can find a way of posting a short demo.

Here's a link to Fender catalogues going back to 2004 plus some earlier vintage ones. Might be a worth a look. https://guitar-compare.com/catalogs/fender-catalogs/ Reggaebass's suggestion of nail polish is a good one, I've used that for small dings before and there's a massive range of colours out there to play around with.

Have you already seen this one? https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/articles/214034783-Instrument-Finish-Color-Chart

If you like the Hofner vibe but not the Beatle bass shape then take a look at the Club. Cool little bass, I love mine.

Freq charts for the EBMM 2-band EQ below for info. Not having a centre detent or 'flat' position can be a bit confusing. I found these charts really helpful in understanding what level of cut or boost was going on at various settings of the bass and treble controls.

These are better, from the US though - https://reverb.com/item/19640053-lt-0484-000-10-clay-vintage-clone-1-4-inlay-dots-fret-markers-for-guitar

Allparts do a 'vintage clone' dot inlay, although they don't look right to me: https://www.allparts.uk.com/products/fingerboard-inlay-dots-vintage-clone-1-4-inch-face-10-pcs-and-3-32-inch-side-dots-10-pcs

+1 I recently did this with one of mine and was pleasantly surprised with how it evened up the string to string balance and opened up the tone.

This is worth a quick read. It's about guitar frets but the same applies to bass - https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/fret-sizes-and-materials

There's an MIJ '51 reissue on FB marketplace here (not mine, just came across it) - https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/225905075216407

In the diagram above, follow the orange line from the pickups and you can see it connects with one terminal of the lower battery. This taps off a 9V feed to the pickups. The second battery is connected in series to the lower battery and delivers the full 18V (9V+9V) to the preamp.

If you can't get more headroom out of the MEC circuit one option might be to swap that out for a John East BTB-01 Bass/Treble stack which will run at 18V. https://www.east-uk.com/index.php/bass/single-stack-modules/btb-01.html

Thanks and interesting, I've not come across this mod before.