Oh sorry
I stumbled across the bass on eBay and it was a disaster. It's a '78. It had no nut or bridge and hence wasn't strung up. There were
2 extra sets of bridge holes drilled (
) where some idiot had tried to install what appeared to be a 5 hole Precision/Jazz bridge. Other than that, what was left on the bass was all original. The finish is beat to hell (not as obvious in the pic as in real life) but I like it. Also, there was a copious amount of greenish cheese caked up all over the fretboard.
I took a chance and won the auction for what amounted to a garage sale price. Got it home and cleaned the fingerboard and oiled it and it's actually a pretty piece of rosewood. Frets are pretty much perfect. Then I found a 1971 Musicmaster bridge for ridiculously cheap and installed it. Then I took it to a luthier who is a buddy of mine and had him cut a nut and set it up for a ridiculously cheap price. I removed the stock electronics which sound shitty (but I sold them on eBay for a good bit of $) and installed an Aero Musicmasterer 4 pickup, new pots and cap, and threw a set of Jazz Bass knobs on it. I tried a few sets of strings and settled on D'Addario short scale roundwounds .45-.100. I use the long scale version of those strings on my other basses.
Anyway, the bass is solid as a rock, neck is perfect, and the pickup is thunderous and huge. The 2 extra sets of bridge holes are pretty much covered up by the lip of the bridge, so I did nothing to patch them. They don't hurt anything structurally anyhow. Also, the back of the neck was sanded down by someone but they did a good job, and it feels great. And the kicker- I have less than $430 in this bass. I definitely lucked out in my search.
I've always wanted one of these. In fact, I posted a thread just like this one some time ago on here looking for one. But that's how I got this little gem together, just stumbled across it and had good luck. I have played blues, indie/punk, and classic rock/pop type stuff with it live and it ruled in each situation. I hope you are able to find one, it's a cool bass. I'll definitely let you know if I run across one.