Help Identifying my Bass...

ElwoodGruff · #1 12-04-2008, 06:21 PM

A few months ago I posted some pics on here to try to help identify my bass. Well, I have since had it apart and was wondering if the interior label would provide some insight. can anyone help now, with these pics?

PaulKing · #2 12-05-2008, 06:52 AM

The text on that paper could be an ancient Hungarian cyrillic, which fell out of use in the mid 18th Century, making this a very old, central European 1700s antique.

On the other hand it could be Chinese, from the pages of the Daily News...

I'd go with the latter!
Brave man, taking it apart like that. All go back together OK? What glue did you use?

**Matthew Tucker** · #3 12-05-2008, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaulKing

The text on that paper could be an ancient Hungarian cyrillic, which fell out of use in the mid 18th Century, making this a very old, central European 1700s antique.

On the other hand it could be Chinese, from the pages of the Daily News...

One sure way to find out. Get your luthier to use that big red mallet to whack the top hard between the FFs. (specialist work, don't try this yourself) If it breaks into a hundred pieces, it IS a priceless antique italo-hungarian masterpiece.

If nothing breaks, or if you get a single crack running up by the bass bar, then its a chinese bass dating to the late 20th century.

More than that is difficult to say ... perhaps there's a clue here in this picture you posted in the other thread?

Let us know if your new setup makes the bass better for you. I'm sure it will.

PaulKing · #4 12-05-2008, 02:43 PM

Enough comedy, some helpful guidance:
What would most likely help is pics of details like the tuners, the edges of the bass where the front and ribs meet, the shape of the heel.
That way, other owners can compare ours to yours and you might get some idea. The trouble is there are lots of similar basses, with no labels. Lots from China, lots from Europe, from very nice expensive ones to very cheap low quality ones. And you can't be sure any two are the same even if they look it.

So without a label, it's going to be hard to tell exactly where yours came from, except to say that it's a Chinese bass.
Try to compare it to Shens, Cremonas, Christophers, and maybe look at some of the ones available on the internet .. if you can see enough detail to make comparisons.

See if any of us recognis it over at rockabillybass.com, you're more likely to get a match over there than here I'd say.
Paul

ElwoodGruff · #5 12-11-2008, 06:07 PM

Thanks for the input guys. I'm going with late 20th Century Chinese from what I can tell.

As for taking it apart, it went back together just fine, but I didn't do it. I have a good friend who works on stringed instruments. He was repairing some cracks and doing a setup for me; he took s the pics while he was working on it.