Status Silhouette Series

[Simon The Pieman]

I recently acquired one of these and it looks and feels pretty vintage. But I can’t find any information about them or how to date them. Can anyone help?

All I’ve found is that Status made these Precision copies before they focused on Graphite necks so I’m thinking late 80’s?

[martthebass]

I don't think these had anything to do with Status Graphite.  I could stand corrected but the images I've seen look like standard far east produced Fender clones?

[LeftyJ]

Nope. Status Graphite started out with headless basses and guitars with graphite necks from the start. Only later did they start producing basses with wooden necks, until switching back to exclusively graphite in the late 90s or early 00s until Rob Green's semi-retirement in 2023 which saw them abandoning graphite necks and switching back to wood on the Series 23 basses. 

[Bassassin]

The only non-Status Status I've encountered before is an early 70s Japanese Jazz copy (which oddly, turns up in an old Jedson catalogue) which pre-dates Rob Green's output by about a decade. And lest we forget - his basses were originally called 'Strata' - until Fender noticed & took issue with the first syllable - so neither of these other Status brands are anything to do with Rob.

 

Having had a quick look, these 'Status Series' things do just look like generic 90s-ish budget copies, possibly Korean-made if you're lucky. There's not too much out there but the few pics & mentions all seem to originate from Australia (as does the OP) which suggests it was an Australian importer/distributor using the name.

[LeftyJ]

59 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

And lest we forget - his basses were originally called 'Strata'

 

Good call!