Cort Artisan 6 String - Authentic or not?

[servechilled]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a keyboard player, and I only dabble with the bass guitar for fun.

A while back I picked up this bass for 700 ZAR, which if you do the conversion, is not a lot of money. It's marked as a Cort, with "Artisan" written between the tuning pegs at the headstock, and "Custom" on an inlay in one of the frets near the body. The neck is not a thru-neck and is screwed on.

What bothers me is that whilst searching for such a bass on the internet to see what I had bought, all the Artisan 6 string basses have 5 or six tone control knobs, whereas this one has only 4. Also, the Artisan basses online all have these "stripes" down the body, which this one does not have.

So, does anyone have any information about this bass? Is it authentic or is it a replica? Do these differences have anything to do with the fact that it's a "Custom" bass?

Pictures below.

Many thanks
Servechilled

[servechilled]

A Google search also returned this image, which is of an Artisan 5 string which was for sale on tripleguitar.com

It bears striking resemblance to the 6 string I have. What are the chances that they're both inauthentic?

[Jazz Ad]

It is an early Artisan B6 model, circa 1995.

[servechilled]

Thank you Jazz Ad,

Searching for Cort B5 basses returns a wealth of better results for the 5 string mentioned in my previous post, but the bass that I actually own is a 6 String.

Do you by any chance know the model and course approximate value of the 6 string bass?

[servechilled]

So sorry, I missread the "B6" as "B5" in your previous post. Is it worth anything.

[renniw]

It looks like the older (around 1999 to 2005?) models headstock (I had the 5 strings version and it was a good bass)

At that time, they also had the 4 knobs preamp (volume, balance, bass, treble).

I found an example of that era model in that thread :

The CORT Club!!!

[servechilled]

Thanks renniw!

I'm relieved to know that it's authentic, albeit kind of old

I'm having trouble with my main keyboard, it has terrible rf-interference with cell phones, so I'm considering selling the bass to get some cash for a better keyboard.

Also, cool link to The Cort Club I'm not a bassist, but I love the instrument.

Servechilled

[aldoni]

Yes I believe it's authentic..
And if I'm not mistaken, the first 4 digits in the serial number represents the year and month of production. Using this order >> YYMMxxxxxxx
Enjoy your bass!

[wilfredes]

a great site,many useful information!

[lowfreq33]

Cort is a budget/moderately priced company. Nobody is going out of their way to counterfeit them.