Help identifying this bass! 1977 or 1988 or something else?!

[sambecker1]

Dear Basschatters,

I hope you're well. I recently acquired this bass and it seemed like an interesting mix of things to me. I have taken the neck of and it's a Herb Gastelum neck which is a nice surpirse but by my sight on the pencil marking it looks to be an 88 neck and then the pots are from a 77 but I can't tell the markings on the body. Any help identifying what this is would be brilliant and hugely appreciated!
 

Best wishes,

Sam

 

 

[MrFingers]

 

Body does look like a 1970's product to me. It has the straight pocket, so: late 1970's.

Neck is from a 1988 Fender AVRI '62 P-bass. Pickguard is way more recent.

What does the pickup look like underneath the covers?

Edited Wednesday at 18:13 by MrFingers

[sambecker1]

Thanks for this @MrFingers! That’s super helpful. I’ll have a look under the pickups over the next couple of days and let you know what’s under there. The scratch plate is definitely very recent. 

[NancyJohnson]

I suppose while it's nice to know the DNA of an instrument, but once it's all bolted together and playable, does it really matter?

 

Irrespective of the years, everything here is machine made and the parts are interchangeable.

[HeadlessBassist]

We were chatting about this the other week on Brooksy's Bass Corner. Fender basses are a real lucky dip, as they are literally constructed from boxes of necks and bodies, etc. Yours does seem to have had a replacement neck from an AVRI 62. As NJ mentioned, as long as long as it plays and sounds fantastically for you, what does it matter? (Although the history of the bass is always interesting to delve into!)

 

Also, the '88 neck means that you have a few more years' neck reliability in the bass. Some of the older ones have a habit of ejecting their truss rods through the finish eventually, and develop 'humps' in unusual places.

Edited 2 hours ago by HeadlessBassist