Suspicious looking bass

[berth]

and against a 4000 from the net.

Hey! You stole a picture of my bass!

[PedroCarvalho]

Ok, fellas, here's some extra pictures, as requested:









What do you think now?

[PedroCarvalho]

Ok, here's a detailed view of the body, where you can see it does have the route for the neck pickup. It's shallower than the one for the bridge pickup, but you can see it's there because of the shadows by the edges.

[cheyenne]

Looks like a bogus jackplate. The control knobs are messed up, and the truss rods are whacked. I still cant see the neck pup route, I can see something,, but its not factory,

and we need to see whats under that pickguard.

I'd run away....

[cjj]

I'd say the shadow around the neck pickup "route" is just because the pickguard is up off the front surface of the body. What it looks like to me is that the real pickup route is forward of the hole in the pickguard, possibly filled in. You can see some "stuff" in the rounded cuts in the pickguard hole. Kinda looks like a fake pickguard for the older pre-'74 pickup spacing on a newer body.

Looks kinda like some bondo filler in the other pickup cavity too.

[weemac]

Going by the truss rods, it looks real, (and real messed up!)

Need to see under that scratch plate!

Eden.

[rickaddict]

I think it's a real Rick that was stolen, (hence the bogus home made jack plate) re-finished, routed for new pickups (hence the irregular shape and color of the bridge pickup cavity), neglected, beaten, mutilated, abused, improperly stored, improperly adjusted, improperly sanded and then re-refinished, had a pick guard made by a seventh grader in shop class, and was then subjected to a very harsh 4th life touring with a punk band.

It wouldn't surprise me also to learn that it had been used occasionally in January in lieu of sand or chains to provide traction for the band's tour van in the event that it would get stuck on icy roads.



I too, would run away.

Paul W. could transform this into a sweet bass, but for the amount of money that it would require, I'd find something else.

Looks like it might have originally been eggplant burgundy, by the looks of the bridge pickup and truss rod cavities, BTW.

[bassassin]

Going by the truss rods, it looks real, (and real messed up!)

Need to see under that scratch plate!

Eden.

+1 on both points - I've seen twin truss copies before but they don't have nut adjusters - they're either allen keys or drilled laterally - so you'd insert a bar to turn the nut.

I really want to see what's under the plate!

J.

[jakeox]

I still would want to see if the body binding continues below where the tailpiece is. The jackplate looks typical of a faker, but it's true that it could just have fake pieces attached to a "real" bass. I'm still unconvinced about the fretboard color, too, although the skunk stripe looks about right.

[bassassin]

I still would want to see if the body binding continues below where the tailpiece is. The jackplate looks typical of a faker, but it's true that it could just have fake pieces attached to a "real" bass. I'm still unconvinced about the fretboard color, too, although the skunk stripe looks about right.

Quite a lot of through-neck copies have the binding gap - and the jackplate on this is obviously home-made, realistically there could be any number of reasons for this. Stereo fakers (lots of them were mono) usually have a plate that's a good copy of the original, except it will say "stereo sound" and will not have a serial. The fretboard colour is very dark, although it looks like it's had the finish stripped off & the wood may have been treated or stained to make it darker. The inlays don't look like the kind of refractive MOTO usually seen on copies - although I have seen some authentic-looking ones.

A shot of this without the scratchplate, & showing the routing would clear this up, I think. I'm not yet 100% sure it's real - there are always new varieties of faker to record...

J.

[atomic_punk]

Was this once played in a rainstorm or mud? Wow, those truss rods and vol. and tone controls are GUNKED UP.
And that jackplate is not original either.

[cheyenne]

Just noticed,, it looks as if that fingerboard is unfinished as well. Hmm...

[wints]

Faker or not, it's one hell of a mess...

[rickengeezer]

Those inlays don't look at all right to me, not even close; there doesn't seem to be enough "sparkle", they end too far from the edge of the fretboard, and the shape of that last inlay doesn't seem triangular enough. Inconsistencies do happen, but that dark fretboard and weird inlays scream "made in Japan" to me.

[rickaddict]

Those inlays don't look at all right to me, not even close; there doesn't seem to be enough "sparkle", they end too far from the edge of the fretboard, and the shape of that last inlay doesn't seem triangular enough. Inconsistencies do happen, but that dark fretboard and weird inlays scream "made in Japan" to me.

But this is an early floating inlay 4001 (late '73 or '74). I have one from July of '73 and the inlays are different from those made just a couple years later. The size, shape and material are all slightly different. Mine on my '73 look a little smaller and more round than my '76, my '77, and my '79.

And again, the fretboard has been stripped and was probably also treated in addition to it being filthy, hence it's dark color.

Where's Sergio? He's really good at faker determination.

I agree that pic's under the pick guard would help, but I'm still convinced that this is just a beaten, stolen, and abused late '73 or '74 egg plant burgundy genuine Rick 4001.