Kay M-1: To grovel or not to grovel?

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by drurb

The top doesn't look very sunken at all and is not uncommon for older plys and Kays. It might be fine left as is and may be wiser to leave it alone.

That's what I did, and it hasn't budged. Also, eh_train makes a good point: Let that open seam be the last thing you fix, in case you have to go inside for any reason.

[grampastumpy]

Okay, update: They're not selling it to me for essentially three reasons:
-The "legalities" of selling school property. This is not the main issue as they could easily just make this something of a backdoor deal.
-Shortage of basses during orchestra. 9 basses, 11 players. However, one of the bass players has moved to a different period, which currently only has 2 players. Two of the bassists were seniors and have graduated. There might be more moving to the other period and offset the one or two freshmen we might get. I can come back to this issue once school starts and we know for sure.
-Apparently, it's worth "more than all the other basses combined." I'm pretty damn sure this is completely untrue. They said they've had it looked at by a few bass players who expressed wonderment at its value. I couldn't think of any good way to say "Naw dawg, this thing is worth WELL below $1500." So if y'all have any method of convincing them, this might change...

Either way, they said they'd try to help me find a good used bass. And it's recently occurred to me that I might try my old middle school as my band teacher there liked me quite a bit too.

The top looks a lot more sunken in person. I think next time I see it I'll take a short video panning around it to demonstrate. Of course, this won't be for two weeks, since next week I'm going to Berklee for their Guitar Sessions program. :O

[fdeck]

It sounds like they are gently telling you "no." There are other fish in the sea.

My situation was a bit different: The school district had abandoned its string program 10 years prior, and the instruments had all sat in a storage room for a decade, deteriorating. All the instruments went in the Dumpster when they decided that they needed the space for something else. Too bad I only grabbed one Kay, instead of three.

[longfinger]

Originally Posted by fdeck

The school district had abandoned its string program 10 years prior, and the instruments had all sat in a storage room for a decade, deteriorating. All the instruments went in the Dumpster when they decided that they needed the space for something else. Too

The dumpster? That's really sad. I hope the local kids went dumpster diving before the garbage man showed up.

[grampastumpy]

Originally Posted by fdeck

It sounds like they are gently telling you "no." There are other fish in the sea.

My situation was a bit different: The school district had abandoned its string program 10 years prior, and the instruments had all sat in a storage room for a decade, deteriorating. All the instruments went in the Dumpster when they decided that they needed the space for something else. Too bad I only grabbed one Kay, instead of three.

They sure are. I just kinda wanted to push it a little further just in case.

Alright, I guess I'll look for something else. Thanks a lot though guys. I've picked up some good information for my future bass purchase and repair pursuits.

[JeffreyG]

If they are unwilling to sell you should see if they can have the bass repaired before school starts. If they have a shortage of basses I would think they would want them all to be in good working order.

They might not be too far off in saying that the Kay is worth all of the Palotinos combined.

[james condino]

No need to worry. The other way that old Kays are like old Volkswagons is that you can always find an old broken down one that the owner never got around to fixing and thinks is worth far more than it actually is....They made about 50,000 of them; 95% need work today.

That said, I still like them- a lot. I just strung up a mid 50s today that had been dormant for about 25 years. A fresh neck reset and strung up with a broken in set of gut strings - everyone that came by the place this morning were all checking it out, smiling, and telling stories ( just like an old volkswagon owner).

j.

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by longfinger

The dumpster? That's really sad. I hope the local kids went dumpster diving before the garbage man showed up.

The dumpster. It was the early 80's in a suburb of Detroit. There were no string progams, and really no widespread interest in the arts at all. Nobody would have been interested in an upright bass, or known what to do with it. A few kids played in rock bands. Schools with jazz bands preferred the electric bass.

Those were the conditions.

My brother and I were freaks because we played violin and cello. I chose the bass that seemed the most repairable, and took it home. This was the year that I graduated from high school, and I was not planning on studying music in college. For all I knew, I would play electric bass in the college jazz band, as I had done in high school. Meanwhile, my dad and I repaired the Kay "because it was there."

When I got to college, I did end up in the jazz band. But it turned out that I could take bass lessons in the music department -- upright only. What a concept. Bass lessons, paid for by my parents, earning me credit towards my degree. A slacker's dream, if you will. This is the accident that really turned me into a bassist. It's also an example of how those "liberal arts" courses in college can affect your life in ways that you just can't predict.

I am stunned by how different it is today. All of the schools in the Madison area have string programs, orchestra, band, jazz, etc. Most schools in the state have viable music programs. Amusingly, every year at budget time, the schools debate whether to keep the string program, and there is always enough support from parents and the community to keep it alive. There are some students coming up through the Madison schools who will give us geezers a real run for our money when they are ready to join the scene.