What's rarer than a late 1970s Fender Precision Bass in Antigua finish? Well, how about a left-handed late 1970s Fender Precision Bass in Antigua finish? The seller actually claims that this example is from 1980 despite the headstock displaying a 1970s serial number (S followed by 6 digits), but it is perfectly possible that this was assembled in 1980 by Fender from parts already in stock from a year or two previously.
This bass is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,790.
If any of our regular readers are indeed southpaws and would like to join the Guitarz team with a view to writing pieces on the most interesting lefty guitars and basses on eBay and elsewhere, then please do get in touch!
Anyways, I don't know if you're aware of this or not but I just saw on YouTube a snowboard company that build a snowboard out of a Duff McKagan Fender P-bass that is both playable and rideable - its pretty crazy. They even have footage of it being ridden accompanied with a sound from the pickups that they hooked up to a wireless rig.
Check it out, I figured you'd appreciate something like this.
Hey, thanks for that JPM. We've seen a few guitars already made out of pieces of sporting equipment (cricket bat guitar, tennis racquet guitar, even a guitar made from a boat oar) so I guess it figured sooner or later we were going to get a guitar convered into a piece of sporting equipment instead!
Here is my finished eBay Fretless Precision Deluxe that I thought would be a way to make a versatile fretless bass when the Fretless Epiphone Zenith bass was found to be impossible to get hold of.
I 'won' the Mexican Precision Deluxe from an eBay auction and replaced the fretted neck with a Mighty Mite ebonal fretless neck, which is plenty hard enough for round wound strings. (I re-auctioned the old fretted neck). I then replaced the bridge with a more substantial gold coloured bridge and fitted the Graph Tech Ghost saddle pickup system to the bridge to give me an 'acoustic' pickup along side the Jazz and Precision pickups. I replaced the mid boost knob (which didn't do much) with a Graph Tech volume knob with Dark/Mid push/pull switch.
All parts were purchased off of eBay so I'm calling it the eBay Precision Deluxe and it certainly does give me quite a wide variety of sounds between the three pickups. Adding the Graph Tech pickup was a lot easier than anticipated and certainly worth the effort. Attached is a closeup of the bridge where you should be able to see the modifications.
Here we have a pair of original 1968 Fender Paisleys - a Telecaster (as used by Elvis guitarist James Burton) and Telecaster Bass - both in remarkable condition for their age. The paisley design was effectively wallpaper applied to the guitar before being sealed beneath a clear finish with a pink "burst" around the perimeter to hide the edges of the paper. Often with these original paisleys, the finish has cracked badly through to the paper, and the pink finish usually fades to a not unpleasant gold. You'll see in the photo above that the Telecaster guitar suffers from a crack where the right forearm would rest, and the pink burst has begun to turn gold. But look at those necks - hardly a mark on them; they could almost be new. Both guitar and bass are complete with the pickup/bridge covers that players usually remove and use as ashtrays or whatever; their presence here would probably appeal to the collector more than the player.
The pair are currently being sold via Vintage & Rare for $37,000 for the both of them, or $19,500 for the Telecaster guitar and $18,500 for the Telecaster Bass. At those prices we're talking collectors really. For the rest of us who just happen like the look of them, there have been various Japanese re-issues since the late 1980s which you could turn up for a fraction of the price.
Ah, you don't see these too often. It's a relation of the Fender FMT Bass we looked at in January although, obviously, fretless, with a natural finish and a classic Fender P-Bass style headstock. (In fact, this is the bass, I was referring to in the write-up of the HMT bass.) It's a Fender PBAC-100 fretless bass, Made In Japan 1990, and is clearly based on the Precision Bass but given the Thinline treatment. The bridge is an acoustic-styled unit and features an under-saddle piezo pickup, which used in conjunction with the P-Bass pickup allows for a mix of acoustic and electric tones.
I briefly tried one of these years ago and quite liked it. Looking at these photos now I still think it's a nice bass, but those horrible tone-killing black strings would have to go.
Currently being offered for sale with a Buy It Now price of $1,299.99.
Here's another one from Mark Rubel of Pogo Studio. Mark, who also plays with Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets, tells us that it's a:
Mexican P-Bass that I purchased with the specific intention of painting like Wayne Kramer’s Strat®, just in time for our 4th of July gig.
Keep those photos of your guitars and basses coming in, folks! We've already got some particularly nice photos lined up for the Guitarz 2012 calendar, but could do with a few more!
Here's one for the bass player who prefers a traditionally-styled bass but at the same time wants something a little more individual. Here's what the seller has to say about it:
One of several Fender precision bass replicas made for me from parts (some original Fender/Squier) by Bailey Bros. of Bristol. Used extensively as a back-up touring instrument with Who's Next - a tribute to The Who.
Here is an ultra rare plexiglass Precision Bass. The body is made of lucite acrylic. See-through plexiglass. The neck is a 1997 Fender USA Precision Bass Classic series bass which features a slim Jazz Bass profile maple neck with a rosewood board. The original Fender tuning pegs are present. The pickup is a white capped EMG AXL passive Precision Bass Unit. The bass is finished with an amber-sparkle coloured pickguard.
Apparently John Entwistle himself had one like this in his enormous collection, and it is also similar to the bass used by Charlie Jones who has played for Robert Plant, Goldfrapp and Siouxsie Sioux.
Currently being auctioned on eBay UK with a starting bid of £250. A word of warning: it's going to be very heavy which is most likely the reason that this was the seller's back-up bass and not his main instrument.
Guitarz reader Ryan Coons saw this on Craigslist and commented, "I've seen my share of Fender basses, but nothing quite like this one."
It's a Made in Japan Fender HMT Bass circa 1989/90, has an F-hole in a Thinline-inspired P-Bass body, an active TBX tone control and a piezo pickup in the fixed acoustic-style bridge. Very unusually for a Fender, it doesn't sport their trademark headstock shape or familiar logo. The name "HMT" and the headstock shape would imply "Heavy Metal", but the f-fole and acoustic pickup/bridge do not quite fit in with this image.
I remember around this period at a music show in London seeing a similar Fender bass, but fretless and with the more usual P-Bass headstock and in natural finish. I guess that was a Japanese-built sibling of the bass we see here. That one I could understand. This one seems to have identity issues.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Guitarz reader and guitar enthusiast Jim Hevesy tells us about his Hembry doubleneck:
The double neck was built by Scott Hembry in Washington state. I live in Maryland near Washington DC and I found Scott through another guy on E-bay. I sent Scott what I was looking for and he built it for me. When I would play at church, I never knew what other players I might have so I wanted a 4x6. I was on a Telecaster kick so I wanted to see if he could incorporate a ‘fat’ Tele and a Fender P. I used to have a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda muscle car when I was growing up and I always like the plumb crazy color they had. After talking with Scott we decided on "flip/flop" paint that changes from green to purple depending on the light. He also painted a racing stripe on it for me changing the original "Hemi" to "Hevy" which is what most people call me. I sold a bunch of old stuff I had on e-bay and had this made. It is the fattest Tele I have ever heard (add all that wood and metal and what do you expect?) and plays like a dream. Here are some pics of it. One cool one you will see is the back with a reflection of a giant pine tree from the pacific northwest where it was built.
guitarz.blogspot.com: This fretless Fender Precision Bass from 1978 is a thing of beauty, and I'm saying that even as a non-fan of sunburst finishes. However, I always do a double take when I see a fretless bass with a maple fingerboard instead of the more usual rosewood or preferably ebony. It looks totally weird to my eyes, which isn't to say that it's unattractive.
I think I'd upset a few Fender collectors if I ever got my paws on a bass such as this because the very first thing I'd do would be to rip off the dreadful flatwound strings that people insist on putting on fretless basses and replace them with proper roundwounds.
I know WHY fretless basses got saddled with flatwounds - it's so as not to mark the fingerboard. However, they totally kill the tone. Put roundwounds on and the bass will sing and sound glorious. I'd rather have a bit of fingerboard wear rather than a bass that sounds dead.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
I'm happy to share today something I just learned yesterday (maybe I'm just dumb and was the only one who didn't know but still it's worth telling) about electric guitar genesis.
Probably even more important that his contribution to solid body guitars, Leo Fender developed the electric bass (invented by Paul Tutmarc in the 30s). But the chronology of it is interesting. The Esquire/Broadcaster/Telecaster guitar came first (1951), then the Precision Bass, for which Leo Fender invented the double-horn design to reduce and balance a bigger body. And this lead to the design of the iconic Stratocaster.
NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!
The owner of this Precision bass copy has done a really interesting custom job on it. The quality of the finish looks most professional. I don't care much for the way he's trimmed the body and the headstock, but I do very much like the holes. It could be a companion for my own Feline "Holy Panther" Strat.
And before someone else says it, I'm so glad that he didn't finish it in yellow so it ended up looking like a piece of swiss cheese.
P Bass reaches 50 - The Fender Custom Shop is now taking orders for the 1951 Anniversary Precision Bass. Unveiled at summer's NAMM show, the bass will start shipping in October, the same month the in which the bass was originally launched 50 years ago.
This fretless Fender Precision Bass from 1978 is a thing of beauty, and I'm saying that even as a non-fan of sunburst finishes. However, I always do a double take when I see a fretless bass with a maple fingerboard instead of the more usual rosewood or preferably ebony. It looks totally weird to my eyes, which isn't to say that it's unattractive.
RSS