AustinLeftyBass wrote:
Love the Yamahas, I see we string our basses the same way.
Basshappi wrote:
The internet has been very enlightening to me for the fact that it has made me aware of how many manufacturers produced lefties. When I was a young player the internet had yet to be invented and I lived in the hinterlands of west Texas. Though I read every copy of Guitarplayer I could get my hands on and was aware of many different brands the only quality instruments that were available to me were the "Big 3". There was one shop in town that had one or two different specimens like Alembic and Aria and I always recieved (and lusted over) the Carvin catalog but that was it and a true lefthanded instrument was a fantasy.
pjmuck wrote:
I'm fascinated by every company's unique take on design aesthetics, mechanics, and attempts at innovation
It's a common story that so many of us have been influenced and/or motivated to some degree by the near impossiblity of laying hands on a Lefty bass. Back in the mid 70's I grew up a kid of modest means in a small midwestern town of about 35,000, 3 hours from the nearest major city. I got interested in playing at age 13 because my 2 years older (right handed) brother played guitar in a garage band and I wanted to be able to hang out with him (not to mention the girls that would gather outside our garage whenever he and his buddies would jam
). Everybody wanted to play guitar or drums so there was usually an opening for a bass player, but I couldn't afford an instrument. For the first 2 or 3 years I didn't have my own bass...I would just beg and borrow if one of his friends would let me use theirs. This is why to this day I still play strung righty, it was out of necessity so I could pick up anybody's bass and play it. In some ways this was perhaps a good thing in that it motivated me to really apply myself, my playing advanced rapidly beyond the garage bands and I soon became a very sought after bassist playing out in clubs with older working musicians, with my fake ID and all. All through my early playing career I played upside down righty basses. The right handed basses I owned were either semi- symetrical in design, or didn't look completely stupid played "upside-down". My righty Gibson EB3 (I was/am a Jack Bruce fan) and later a Kramer DMZ5000 were designs that worked well for me in this regard and thus achieved a special place in my heart.
Looking back on the pre-internet days, there really wasn't any good way to know that there were lefty basses being made. There was always those Carvin catalogs, but I really couldn't afford to order a guitar (like a lot of musicians my equipment upgrade M.O. was to trade something in and add a few loose bucks until I could pay something off)... and even out on the road, while my right handed band mates would making those great pawn shop finds, I never ever saw any lefty basses in the stores. That's also probably why I was a "Fender Hater" for many years
- I had no idea they made ANY lefty basses and I refused to play an upside down Jazz or P bass... but I was always envious of all the great opportunities and choices the right handers had.
When the internet began to take off and I first started being able to afford to buy more basses, my goal was to get all the old cool, obscure and/or innovative basses that I had only read about or seen in guitar magazines and lusted after in my youth (stuff like an Acoustic Black Widow, or Electra MPC, or a non- reverse T bird) as long as it didn't look too ridiculous upside down. But then as I became more and more knowledgable about all basses, I gradually became more aware and amazed that even back in the day there were companies that had been building a few lefties all along
-- and my quest shifted to getting my hands on every good old lefty I could find. Subconsciously I think part of my motivation for collecting is a response to the frustration of my early years-- almost as if I still can't believe they actually existed (go figure, who knew?!). It's truly a pleasure to able to share these with you guys, as I have been inspired by your collections as well! PJ you know I love your stuff, and trust me you won't be the first guitar playing friend to use me as the poster boy for proving to their wife that there's someone even crazier out there
... I happily accept the honor...
), I'm surprised that you either don't own one, or didn't post it. 
