Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

If we are taking bets, I give it till Monday night.


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Shaftesbury-Bass-Guitar-Iconic-Copy-60s-vintage_W0QQitemZ130072985308QQihZ003QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

DOH!

Looks disgusting!

Doesn't actually say rickenbacker anywhere, so its harder to find, but since its the 3rd attempt I think they would be expecting a re-list, so it wont last long.

Now THAT's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Actually, though, it is pretty expensive for a US company to litigate in the UK, although the WSJ says that more US firms are opening UK practices to ease the way for US companies like RIC. But eBay US will get it removed it for the likes of John Hall I am sure without the need for that

The seller has his facts wrong as well. My very first bass is a Shaftesbury made in ITALY at the end of the 60's. It is a copy of a Fender Telecaster bass, and great fun it is too.

The basses imported from Japan, like this one, were made in the 70's.

I remember looking at Shaftsbury basses in the mid sixties when I was a school boy. You bought them from the "Bell Accordions" catalogue which was the main (only) place to buy mail order. The only thing that stopped me buying one (£1 down and then 20 weeks at £1) was that they didn't do a lefty version.

Bell Accordions, ahh, now there's a name from the UK past!!!

My goodness Peter, are you really THAT old..?

I got my Shaftesbury Tele copy in 1971, it cost me £57.00.

Yeah, Bob. A pound a week was a "Kings ransom" when you only got 1/- a week pocket money!!!

To call that a lawsuit guitar is to kind.

Bear in mind that this was made over 30 years ago.

I know pete i can't get over how bad this looks.Even 30 years ago i would have thought that copies of guitars & basses would have been better than that.I saw a pic of my dad with his first electric guitar a Watkins Rapier 22 a weird looking guitar.

Here is a nice leftie Watkins Rapier for Peter. IMHO I think it looks very cool.

It might be fun to take a Rick bass, say a beat-up 4005, and modify it to look and play like a Shaftesbury...

Whaddya think, Russ? You on board?

Russ? Russ? Russ??...

In the '60's American guitars cost virtually as much as a new car (not that many working class families could afford cars then - my family certainly couldn't). Good quality guitars were few and far between. British, Japanese, German and Italian (plus a couple of others) guitars were as much as most working class people could afford. Some of them were high class copies, some were not so good, some were odd original designs. Generally though, compared to modern manufactured instruments, they could nearly all be described in one word - ****!
In those days you bought what you could find and afford. To make things even harder there was a government "freeze" on to try to slow down inflation. One side effect of this was that buying on credit was extremely difficult, credit cards didn't exist then of course. So, basically, were were a poor(ish) country who did the best we could in the prevailing circumstances.

You're lucky, when I was your age I lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the street!

Bob, I have had a few Watkins, Wilson and WEM guitars and basses over the years. Although I thought they were reasonably good at the time, looking back, err, maybe not!