1956 Fender P Bass @ Tom's Guitar Shop

[madshadows]

Tom's Guitar shop in Greenwich Market has a 1956 Fender P Bass for sale, I've just seen the photos below on Instagram but it looks stunning, don't know the price but if anyone is looking for one !!

 

John 😄

 

 

[Burns-bass]

As a London shop, I reckon £18,500.

[Reggaebass]

Doesn’t appear to be on the shops website yet, I’d guess a bit more than 18,500, depending on how original it is 

[Burns-bass]

11 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

Doesn’t appear to be on the shops website yet, I’d guess a bit more than 18,500, depending on how original it is 

 

It's a vintage bass off!

 

Maybe Sting will buy it and it'll never be advertised for sale. 

[Beedster]

I had a '56 (or was it a '55). Nice bass, was it £17,500 nicer than an MIJ '55 RI.........?

 

Answers on a postcard 

[Reggaebass]

I’ve never really liked that earlier style P bass , i much prefer the last year 57- 58 onwards, but I’ve never played one, maybe if I did It might change my mind 

[bassbiscuits]

I played a Fender Custom Shop one some years ago. It looked amazing and I really wanted to love it (I’m a P bass fanboy). But no it was very different from the 57-onwards style. Not for me at all. Bummer.

 

That one does look beautiful tho. 

Edited 16 hours ago by bassbiscuits

[Burns-bass]

19 minutes ago, Beedster said:

I had a '56 (or was it a '55). Nice bass, was it £17,500 nicer than an MIJ '55 RI.........?

 

Answers on a postcard 

 

Let's not open this old can of worms (argh go on then...)

[walshy]

Bet the number starts with a 2 not a 1

 

[Steve Browning]

And definitely not a 0. Despite my listing 0189 on my theoretical Xmas list, it was not comfortable to play, as bassbiscuits states. 

[andytoad]

1 hour ago, Reggaebass said:

I’ve never really liked that earlier style P bass , i much prefer the last year 57- 58 onwards, but I’ve never played one, maybe if I did It might change my mind 

I tried one at Andy B's years back, nothing to write home about. It felt like my first attempt luithering.

 

Just my opinion with one single example mind you.

[Beedster]

The SC Precisions are an acquired taste but one that I've acquired, pickguard has to be off though

[martin8708]

I had an early Fender Custom Shop John English 51 P bass , beautiful to look at , but my thumb kept slipping off the single coil pick up .

If money was no object , a 57 / 58  P Bass would be my choice .

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, martin8708 said:

....but my thumb kept slipping off the single coil pick up .

 

I play them with a pick, brings out the SC/flats tone beautifully

[SteveXFR]

Is it any good for metal?

[Mediocre Polymath]

Dang, that's got to be worth a few bob. 

 

Tom's Guitars is a great little shop that has carved out a nice little niche. Tom Smith specialises in weird and unusual second-hand instruments, unique and interesting things that fit in well with a vintage/craft market like Greenwich. It's not an approach that would work in many places, but I think the high footfall he gets in that spot makes it possible to find someone for all his odd 1960s East German guitars, electric bouzoukis, 80s shred machines, etc. I think it helps that he gets a lot of bored blokes who have been left dangerously unattended while their wives are off looking at the market's excellent selection of jewelry, fancy soap, handbags and antiques. 

 

I sold a home-built baritone guitar on commission through the shop last year – the sort of instrument that would have sat for years on ebay or in most shops. Tom shifted it in about three weeks. 

[DF Shortscale]

That’s literally down the road from me, I’m gonna go have a look at the weekend. Quite surprised to see a bass of that calibre in that shop, it does seem like a bit of a novelty market shop but I suppose with Trinity, Greenwich uni and Ravensbourne in the local area there are a lot musicians and music / art students hanging out around there. Not that any of them will be able to afford that bass. (Although you never know, there are still lots of international billionaire trust fund kids coming to London to study).

[NancyJohnson]

Little desire for ownership of anything like this but there's thousands of (pro/minted) players out there with burgeoning collections that would consider a £20k-odd price tag as small change.

 

We've no real idea of the provenance here, whether it's been used regularly or if it's spent 60 years under someone's bed.  That said, rest assured there's Precision bass fanboys on this very site RIGHT NOW who are doing the sums to work out whether they could afford this. 

 

The real sadness is that if it went to someone like Geddy Lee or Sting or <insert name here>, it would just become just another bass in an already huge collection and likely never see any real action.

 

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

The real sadness is that if it went to someone like Geddy Lee or Sting or <insert name here>, it would just become just another bass in an already huge collection and likely never see any real action.

But why's that a sadness? It's a few pieces of wood and metal put together in a factory, to many people it's just as much a piece of visual art or a historic antique as it is a musical instrument (as I said above, you can get instruments just as good for around 5% of the likely price of this). As Leo would have agreed, there's nothing particularly special about them as instruments, it's not a Strad  

[Burns-bass]

19 minutes ago, Beedster said:

But why's that a sadness? It's a few pieces of wood and metal put together in a factory, to many people it's just as much a piece of visual art or a historic antique as it is a musical instrument (as I said above, you can get instruments just as good for around 5% of the likely price of this). As Leo would have agreed, there's nothing particularly special about them as instruments, it's not a Strad  

 

The more I play the old ones I realise it's an entirely harmless indulgence, but an indulgence nonetheless. Some of these older basses can feel quite agricultural. We often ascribe onto them meaning, history and value that's not really there. These things aren't the history, it's the players.

 

When I showed my dad one of my old vintage basses he appaised it and then said "It would look so much better with a fresh coat of paint. Why don't you make it look good again?" which made me laugh.

[NancyJohnson]

12 minutes ago, Beedster said:

But why's that a sadness? It's a few pieces of wood and metal put together in a factory, to many people it's just as much a piece of visual art or a historic antique as it is a musical instrument (as I said above, you can get instruments just as good for around 5% of the likely price of this). As Leo would have agreed, there's nothing particularly special about them as instruments, it's not a Strad  

 

Maybe sadness was the wrong word here.  Disconsolate, maybe.  Dunno.  No synonym springs to mind.  And yes, I get the 5% analogy.

 

Umm.  I recall a story about a multi-millionaire Japanese businessman that was obsessed with vintage and rare Rickenbacker guitars/basses and bought them like any normal Joe might buy a CD ir book.  He didn't even play guitar or bass, it was just about ownership and - fair enough - that was his thing.

 

This little yarn springs to mind every time I see something aligned to expensive/rare guitars.  Someone with deep enough pockets will buy it and - using Geddy Lee as an example - it'll just sit in his house/lockup and likely never see daylight again.

 

Probably digging myself into a big hole here.

[Beedster]

1 minute ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

Maybe sadness was the wrong word here.  Disconsolate, maybe.  Dunno.  No synonym springs to mind.  And yes, I get the 5% analogy.

 

Umm.  I recall a story about a multi-millionaire Japanese businessman that was obsessed with vintage and rare Rickenbacker guitars/basses and bought them like any normal Joe might buy a CD ir book.  He didn't even play guitar or bass, it was just about ownership and - fair enough - that was his thing.

 

This little yarn springs to mind every time I see something aligned to expensive/rare guitars.  Someone with deep enough pockets will buy it and - using Geddy Lee as an example - it'll just sit in his house/lockup and likely never see daylight again.

 

Probably digging myself into a big hole here.

 

All fair points, and there's the argument that wealthy collectors inflate the prices of these instruments beyond the reach of musicians which I get. But if these vintage examples were significantly better instruments that those available to contemporary musicians I think the argument would be stronger. The thing is, they really aren't, or at least they really aren't in the same way as a 18th century Italian violin potentially is better than those made today, which is a a function of the materials, aging, and craftsmanship. I had a Squier CV 50s Precision that frankly was about 90% of my old '55. OK, the latter had mojo by the tonne, but the mojo a musician should really care about is in their brain and their fingers. not in the paintwork of their instrument   

[NancyJohnson]

11 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

When I showed my dad one of my old vintage basses he appaised it and then said "It would look so much better with a fresh coat of paint. Why don't you make it look good again?" which made me laugh.

 

Had the same thing when I was a kid, some televised concert thing, mid-70s, maybe The Carpenters; bass player was using an already well beaten-up Jazz or Precision and my mum was going, 'Look at that old thing.  Why wouldn't he have a nice new one?'

[Beedster]

6 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

Had the same thing when I was a kid, some televised concert thing, mid-70s, maybe The Carpenters; bass player was using an already well beaten-up Jazz or Precision and my mum was going, 'Look at that old thing.  Why wouldn't he have a nice new one?'

 

IIRC one of the members here was forbidden by his BL to use an old bass in a function band simply because it looked tatty 🤔

[Beedster]

My exes, original '55 on the left, Fender Custom Shop (ex @AndyTravis) on the right