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Gherson basses


bigmuff69
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Italian madness from the 70s. Your bass is a Picar, according to FetishGuitars:

https://www.fetishguitars.com/castelfidardo-recanati/gherson/

There's a catalogue pic about 2/3 down the page. Gherson seem to have predominantly made decent quality copies, and original designs such as yours aren't too common. A proper weirdo rarity, and for that reason alone, I'd say you got a bargain!

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6 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

I like it...is that the original bridge though? Looks a bit too hi tech for an old bass.

Looks like it from the catalogue pic:

image.png.787afd99375cca4cce2434ddebafbc6f.png

Don't think it's ancient, might even be early 80s, when chunky bridges were starting to be a thing. Would like to see more pics of this, looks like the tuners might be Schaller M4S - Gherson used those on their rather decent Rick copy.

Edit - just noticed it's actually called a "Finger Picar". How very odd! :lol:

Edited by Bassassin
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I have a Gherson Jazz bass, natural blond, I'm told they were only made in 1973.

Long story short - '73 I went to that London determined to buy a Rick but every one I tried was NFG. When shown and played the Gherson I fell in love on the spot. It served me well for many gigs over many years.

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9 hours ago, Bassassin said:

:shok:

Amaze. Never seen anything like that before. I want one...

Tuners are Schallers, or very good copies. Set-neck too. Quality. Wonder if that big black 8-pole pickup's a DiMarzio Model One?

Quite possibly an M1, given there is a micro-switch which came with that model. The coil was tappable. Can't see it being a pup selector switch.

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3 hours ago, NikNik said:

Quite possibly an M1, given there is a micro-switch which came with that model. The coil was tappable. Can't see it being a pup selector switch.

That's what I thought. I expect this would have standard DiMarzio red/white/black/green wiring & imperial hex poles. Should be easy to ID from those.

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On 03/10/2019 at 11:22, Bassassin said:

That's what I thought. I expect this would have standard DiMarzio red/white/black/green wiring & imperial hex poles. Should be easy to ID from those.

Interestingly enough,  I almost bought the first version of that pup when it was issued around 1979. I had an Ibby 2388BDX and hated the weak single coil in the Mudbucker housing. I never figured why Ibanez put EB3-copy pups in the through-neck version but fitted more authentic-looking pups to the bolt-on job.

Anyways.....I couldn't afford the M1 at that time and went with a double-rail humbler from Bill Lawrence. I'd buy that bass back in a heartbeat if I knew where it was. And that it had a new truss-rod nut!!😅

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  • 2 months later...

I bought a new Les Paul shaped Gherson bass in Israel in '81-82, just like the one on FetishGuitars. It was short scale and weighed a ton. I put long scale Rotosound strings on it because I didn't know better. It was well put together, though I did notice a couple of finish imperfections. It served me well for a number of years but what an anchor! I sold it in '86 before returning to the States.

At the time I had a choice of a LP, Jazz (JB), or Rickenbacker (RB) shaped Gherson in the same shop, all about the same price. I was anti-Fender shape at the time, and I kick myself for not snagging the Rickenbacker copy instead of the LP. I think I was put off by the slightly odd burst finish.

The Finger Picar wasn't available in the shop and knowing me I might have been drawn to the oddity. It is the only bass that Gherson designed (instead of copying) and is thus rather rare.

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