Basses bought in a re badged

[daz]

There was a thread on here last month about a bass on US [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=190465479061&si=wJVOcymhaKaRkZOKdcbs%252Bu6Jw6E%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=ADME%3AX%3AAAQ%3AUS%3A1123"]ebay here[/url] The seller was claiming it as some super rare bass or something.

Some one on this forum wrote something about when he worked in a music store in the 80s that they used to buy in similar basses from Korea or somewhere and re badge them as there own make or something.? I was speaking to a guy who also worked in a music shop during the early 80s and he mentioned something similar happening. Does anyone on the forum know anything about this practice? From what i can recal my mate seemed to think that this was normal practice for some companies and perfectly acceptable. Just as re badging of many other consumer items goes on.

Can anyone expand on this?

[Mr. Foxen]

Far Eastern factories that make basses to contract don't generally care what name is stuck on them. No basses come branded Matsumoko, but plenty of names are on basses made by them. It is totally normal practice.

[stingrayPete1977]

Our Guitard has been looking into Les paul copies and found a website where you tell them what you want made (Anything in the world is possible) and they will give you a quote. He specced a mahogany body and neck and with all the usual Gibson goodies except a case and they came to £60-80 a piece! There was one catch though at the bottom of the page the price difference depended on if you wanted the 20 or 40 foot shipping container full

[essexbasscat]

Boosey and Hawkes have done this with wind instruments for decades. Suspect Stentor do the same.

A lot of well known names on instruments outside of the bass world are actually the name of the importer.

T

[Cat Burrito]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1045436' date='Dec 2 2010, 06:26 PM']Our Guitard has been looking into Les paul copies and found a website where you tell them what you want made (Anything in the world is possible) and they will give you a quote. He specced a mahogany body and neck and with all the usual Gibson goodies except a case and they came to £60-80 a piece! There was one catch though at the bottom of the page the price difference depended on if you wanted the 20 or 40 foot shipping container full [/quote]
I know the site and apparently it is majorly flooding the UK. More of a Les Paul thing than a bass thing. At the moment anyway

[Bassassin]

The vast majority of small brand names are importers' own - they simply order a batch of guitars from a factory, or through an exporter, specify models & colours, and have their own brand names put on the instruments. You've probably seen the rather sexy Retrovibe & Probass models a few BCers have been getting into - the guy who sells these appears to order small batches of instruments built to his spec and with his brand on - I have every intention of buying one of his red Rick copies - after all, when they first appeared in black or white, I did say that if there was red with black binding version, I'd have one. And lo & behold...

I have been seriously thinking about experimenting with doing something similar myself, if I could verify there was a market, and if I could scrape together the capital. Anyone fancy a modernised Maton Ibis clone?

Jon.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Bassassin

[apa]

I'll say what we're all thinking shall I?

50+ of us all send it the spec for our 'dream bass'. We go to one of these poor innocent and simple business men in the far east and tell them we are a prospective new international company looking to see how good they are and here is a list of samples as a tester. All done to the highest spec at £50 a throw. Now what could possibly go wrong with that plan?? Whos in? :-D

A

[xilddx]

Bassassin's your man here, but yes, it happened an awful lot, it always has, right back to the '60s and probably earlier in terms of leccy guitars.

[icastle]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1045436' date='Dec 2 2010, 06:26 PM']Our Guitard has been looking into Les paul copies and found a website where you tell them what you want made (Anything in the world is possible) and they will give you a quote. He specced a mahogany body and neck and with all the usual Gibson goodies except a case and they came to £60-80 a piece! There was one catch though at the bottom of the page the price difference depended on if you wanted the 20 or 40 foot shipping container full [/quote]

A guitarist I work with looked into this a while back - a 40' container of assorted stringed instruments (guitars, mandolins, banjos, violins) was about £3K back then. He was very tempted but didn't have the storage space to store them

[Bassassin]

[quote name='apa' post='1045494' date='Dec 2 2010, 07:17 PM']I'll say what we're all thinking shall I?

50+ of us all send it the spec for our 'dream bass'. We go to one of these poor innocent and simple business men in the far east and tell them we are a prospective new international company looking to see how good they are and here is a list of samples as a tester. All done to the highest spec at £50 a throw. Now what could possibly go wrong with that plan?? Whos in? :-D

A[/quote]

Flaw in your plan - he ain't gonna do 50 entirely different dream basses for £50 a pop.

However if 49 other people want a modernised Maton Ibis clone...

J.

[Mog]

Theres a well known shop in Dublin thats been doing some thing similar for years. Re-brandings been around for ages.

[Mr. Foxen]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='1045443' date='Dec 2 2010, 06:33 PM']The vast majority of small brand names are importers' own - they simply order a batch of guitars from a factory, or through an exporter, specify models & colours, and have their own brand names put on the instruments. You've probably seen the rather sexy Retrovibe & Probass models a few BCers have been getting into - the guy who sells these appears to order small batches of instruments built to his spec and with his brand on - I have every intention of buying one of his red Rick copies - after all, when they first appeared in black or white, I did say that if there was red with black binding version, I'd have one. And lo & behold...

I have been seriously thinking about experimenting with doing something similar myself, if I could verify there was a market, and if I could scrape together the capital. Anyone fancy a modernised Maton Ibis clone?

Jon.[/quote]

Why not get just bodies and 'assemble' them in the UK. To customer spec. Custom built in the UK that way.

[icastle]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1045538' date='Dec 2 2010, 07:45 PM']Does that make sense because it took me a few bites to realise what I was being told at the time [/quote]

I had to read it twice, but yes, that makes sense

I guess if you were to do that it would be safest to but the stuff in as blanks and assemble in NI - that'd make the biggest "change" to the product and pretty much guarantee that you'd get the appropriate grant.

Buy in nice enough bodies and necks, set them up and add some good hardware and Johnston basses might just end up being the only pro basses assembled in NI

[stingrayPete1977]

11'000+ Bass Chat Members maybe we could commision a run of special BC Basses? Im sure we could all agree on what pickups,Bridges,String gauge,Nut width,Neck profile,Body shape,Active/passive,Ammount of strings and colour it should be!!!

[karlfer]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1045636' date='Dec 2 2010, 08:54 PM']11'000+ Bass Chat Members maybe we could commision a run of special BC Basses? Im sure we could all agree on what pickups,Bridges,String gauge,Nut width,Neck profile,Body shape,Active/passive,Ammount of strings and colour it should be!!! [/quote]


I will have a pint of what you are drinking
Karl.

[Mr. Foxen]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1045636' date='Dec 2 2010, 08:54 PM']11'000+ Bass Chat Members maybe we could commision a run of special BC Basses? Im sure we could all agree on what pickups,Bridges,String gauge,Nut width,Neck profile,Body shape,Active/passive,Ammount of strings and colour it should be!!! [/quote]

I think that would end up with some hideous over-enthusiasm spawned mongrel.

[daz]

Thanks for the replies. This is certainly an interesting subject to learn about. The only reason i thought of asking it was because of the ebay link i saw on here last month price starting at $1900+ [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=190465479061&si=wJVOcymhaKaRkZOKdcbs%252Bu6Jw6E%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=ADME%3AX%3AAAQ%3AUS%3A1123"]click here [/url]with the supposed [i]Practically "Priceless" and unique[/i] ebay sale [quote]Rare 1980's Japanese Bass Guitar P-Bass Copy by "Vogue"[/quote]

Someone here speculated that it might be just a cheap imported bass with a name sticker pasted on it, bought in by the container load. When i messaged the guy on ebay asking if he thought his super rare bass with a brand name nobody had ever heard of might just be one of those, i got an email back with him seemingly shocked, He said he had been to 8 or 9 music shops in the US and none had ever heard of this happening ??

I had no axe to gring as I was never going to bid for it nor would I even if I had the spare cash. I was and still am curious about it, and the whole importing in bulk and stamping ones own name on deal.

Edited December 2, 2010 by daz

[icastle]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1045569' date='Dec 2 2010, 08:05 PM']Would that make them M.I.N.I. basses then [/quote]

Get ya coat

[icastle]

[quote name='daz' post='1045706' date='Dec 2 2010, 09:45 PM']Someone here speculated that it might be just a cheap imported bass with a name sticker pasted on it, bought in by the container load. When i messaged the guy on ebay asking if he thought his super rare bass with a brand name nobody had ever heard of might just be one of those, i got an email back with him seemingly shocked, He said he had been to 8 or 9 music shops in the US and none had ever heard of this happening ??[/quote]

I saw the advert - I have never seen the word *PRICELESS* used so often in a single advert!

To add a sense of proportion to the guys statement, if I told you that Fender had never made a green PB, you might go and ask in one shop, you might even ask in two shops - but EIGHT or NINE if the first two had told you I was talking cr*p?
No way

[ThomBassmonkey]

This was my fave bit:

The head has been redrilled & the keys were changed & moved. They are enclosed with the name "Grover". There are what appears to be two left & right handed enclosures. I'm sure this was probably done to take the weight off the head, making it less top-heavy.

I didn't click on at first, then I realised that it has 2+2 machine heads instead of 4-in-a-row, they're just all on the same side. Of course that'll be due to balance.

Here's a link to the harmony central review he tried to link to: [url="http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/100052"]http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/100052[/url] It's not especially complimentary. haha

[icastle]

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='1045735' date='Dec 2 2010, 10:09 PM']This was my fave bit:
The head has been redrilled & the keys were changed & moved. They are enclosed with the name "Grover". There are what appears to be two left & right handed enclosures. I'm sure this was probably done to take the weight off the head, making it less top-heavy.[/quote]

It wouldn't have been quite so bad if whoever did it could be bothered to smear a bit of filler in the redundant screwholes and wipe a bit of paint over them.
I knew there was something funny about those Grovers - didn't click that they were 2x2 instead of 4x1.
Christ knows what the electrics are like if it's had a pup change as well!

[spinynorman]

There's precedents for bass forum specials - over on The Last Bass Outpost they commissioned BaCH to produce a run of non-rev Thunderbird clones. They were cheap, but not £50 cheap, and BaCH have now put them into commercial production. Needs someone with time and patience to babysit the supplier, though, if you're at all bothered about the spec you get. Then there were the Dudepit LE Laklands and Bongos, probably the less said about those the better.

[AndyTravis]

That review is unreadable.

[daz]

Never heard of BaCH. Who am they ?

[icastle]

[quote name='daz' post='1045910' date='Dec 3 2010, 01:56 AM']Never heard of BaCH. Who am they ?[/quote]

Czech guitar manufacturers.

[url="http://www.bachmusik.com/en/"]http://www.bachmusik.com/en/[/url]