LeftyBassist.com

Found this on CL today ...

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/msg/935840379.html

I played it. It was nice. Great neck, and fairly light. When I played it, the seller was asking $1900. Now he's asking $2100. Hmmm.

FYI, the pickups and bridge aren't original, and it's been autographed (by Ray Price). I believe the pickups are Fender Noiseless. Not sure about the bridge. The seller bought it from Ebay a while back, so you may have seen it there before.

I also contacted him. Its in Berkeley.. 1 hour from me and I was supposed to go by during the holiday break to see it.

bbl... was it worthy? Light for a 73 is not my ideal older Fender. I do know he mentioned the body could have been from a different year. That made me decide the "in no hurry to see". It's a frankenbass. If you want a player, it might be a good one. If you want a collector, I do not believe a frankenbass will be worthy. The 1965 sold for 3400. Man, I wish it was someone from this board. I want to know more about it. The seller never sent me additional pics or got back with me.

I'm not even a jazz bass guy and I'd love to own that bass. If I had the funds right now I'd take it.

That used to belong to me. It's a great bass with a schaller roller bridge and Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups. I replaced the pickguard with a WD. Original was white. Bass has some nice natural relicing. There was some sort of toggle switch at some point, so there is some extra routing underneath the PG near the control cavity. The bass was in great condition and had a perfect neck when I owned it. Hope this helps since he's not coming off much info. Overpriced as hell though

The neck is stamped 72 and the body 73, so I don't believe this is a frankenbass (although I guess it could be). Fender did use to build instruments from parts this way.

Oh, by the way if I have old pics of it still, i'll post them here

Thanks, Matt. Can I ask - how much did you sell it for? And is there a story about the autograph?

Yeah, the seller never told me that it might be a frankenbass. It didn't appear to be, but I dunno. The body has a lot of finish cracking (which is fine and expected). The neck is great, really. And it's a 4-bolt. I was thinking about buying it just for the neck!

Speaking of the neck, it also appears that someone added an additional string tree (for E and A strings) to the headstock, then removed it. No big deal, but full disclosure, you know.

gravesbass, was it worthy? I dunno. I play a '76 Jazz with EMGs (and set up perfectly for me) and an active pre, and thru my SVT II and 410 Schroeder. When I played this bass, I was playing it thru his GK rig. The tone just didn't speak to me, and in my mind I was comparing it to my '76 (apples to oranges). The action was good, but not as good as mine.

I'm really wondering about this now. When I talked to him over the phone, the seller told me that he thought it was all-orginal, except for the autograph. Then I looked at it and noted the replacement bridge and pickups. Now I'm learning that the pg is a replacement and there was some add'l routing done.

And I assume that you, Matt, disclosed all of this when you sold it to him. So he knew all this.

Man, that just rubs me the wrong way.

FYI, I paid $1300 for my modded '76 Jazz.

Hmmmmm, he just mentioned he thought it could be a frankenbass and was unsure if the body and neck were original. Who knows.... he was a nice guy over the phone tho. All in all, the neck is worth it to me if straight but no funds to spend right now..... An aftermarket pick guard kinda makes it less original and yes, the bridge was different and I suspect the tuners might have been non-original also although after further research on that years tuners, they might be correct. The body checking.. expected for such an old bass. Another thing to mention was the pots are not original. Was their routing under that pickguard? If so that sucks!

Yes I changed the pots too. They were in rough shape.

Couldn't find my old Ebay pics of it but here I am playing it in September 2005:

Well just to play devil's advocate, I didn't sell directly to this guy. I sold it to a guy in Canada then I noticed he sold it on Ebay some time after that, so I don't remember what he disclosed in the listing. But yeah, I ALWAYS disclose that kind of stuff. It's entirely possible that this guy innocently could be ignorant of that stuff but who knows. Autograph was on it when I got it. Ray Price hasn't tipped over yet so that part of it's worthless so far If I can think of anything else of course I'll post it.

Ah, thanks. I wrongly assumed you sold it to him directly and started to judge based on that. Thanks for setting me straight.

Yes, it's very possible the seller didn't know all of this. That's the only reasonable conclusion I can make. He's a very nice guy.

Now on ebay with a much higher BIN :

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lefty-1973-Fender-J ... 1|294%3A50

Yea, he needs to describe the bass with a little more detail. It has finish checking all over the back and the pups are also not original. Good neck according to "bbl" here on the boards but the key for ebay is describe exactly without multiple questions. I link pics from my auctions to my blogger site so the interested parties can see better quality pics without bugging me with everything. Description is everything on the bay and I have sold everything with this theory.

He doesn't mention the replacement pickups. Poor.

And he's also listed a newer MIA jazz (natural). And I played that one - I was going to buy it just for the neck, but there's a gash on the back of the neck right in the first position, 'bout 2 inches from the headstock. It's not just a scratch, it's a gash (he told me that the bass fell over right after he acquired it and hit the end of something). But he doesn't mention that "blemish" at all in that listing. Poor.