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Odd Vintage Fender on eBay

K

Keef

Jul 3, 2003
335
3
Hollywood, CA
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#1
On auction is a 60's Fender Bass V. Unlike the normal Bass V, it has a 3 by 2 tuner arrangement. The standard arrangement is 5 on one side.

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It must be a replacement neck (for one thing, the decal is ********), but who on earth makes a long-scale, five-string, 15-fret replacement neck? Custom luthier job, I suppose...

This is the standard headstock, by the way:

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LINK to eBay auction
 
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#2
No, 15 frets is right. With the added high C string, Fender thought the extra frets would be irrelevant.

In fact, I think that's part of the reason they discontinued it. Since they were already market leaders, it made no sense to introduce a product that differed from the winning formula too much. Also, the public's familiarity with the by then established P and J basses made the Bass V look kind of weird.

You're right about the 3 + 2 headstock, unless that's a prototype. Tuners are definitely aftermarket, though, so I'd rule that out.
 
#7
Blackbird said:
No, 15 frets is right. With the added high C string, Fender thought the extra frets would be irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Sorry Blackbird, I must have explained myself poorly. I do know that the Bass V came with 15 frets – I only mentioned the number in the context of my not believing that a 15 fret replacement neck could ever had been marketed.

It's a funny instrument, it has an additional string (C) but the exact same number of notes as a P-Bass. :rolleyes:
 
#9
Not fancy..refin ok....anybody? and that ebay neck is NOT right, it reminds me of some of the first 5's..back when the fender was the only commercially available one. i really do recall a company making replacement necks that looked similiar..

so what you had was a strange Fender..a split mustang pickup on a 15 fret bass..basically a stretched Mustang body too..
 
#10
The Bass V was one of the first CBS/Fender basses after CBS bought the Fender company in Jan 1965 for $13 million (with a $25K/ yr retainer for Leo who thought he might be terminally ill). It was tuned E-C with 15 frets, and was discontinued in 1970. During the same period, they also 'updated' the Fender amps to solid-state -- another non-starter. Both, I believe, were part of a bundle of CBS decisions in the first few years that totally lost them credibility with musicians.

They did the same thing with Steinway. Quality in both CBS subdivisions was spotty, sometimes good, sometimes mediocre. But arrogant treatment of musicians, and ill-conceived technology improvements in technology lost them a lot of customers.
 
#11
westland said:
The Bass V was one of the first CBS/Fender basses after CBS bought the Fender company in Jan 1965 for $13 million (with a $25K/ yr retainer for Leo who thought he might be terminally ill). It was tuned E-C with 15 frets, and was discontinued in 1970. During the same period, they also 'updated' the Fender amps to solid-state -- another non-starter. Both, I believe, were part of a bundle of CBS decisions in the first few years that totally lost them credibility with musicians.

They did the same thing with Steinway. Quality in both CBS subdivisions was spotty, sometimes good, sometimes mediocre. But arrogant treatment of musicians, and ill-conceived technology improvements in technology lost them a lot of customers.
Click to expand...

..outside the 15 fret decision..I like the idea a lot..a 5 with a "high C"..still trying to discern if it's a 34" scale though, as on another post yesterday, a tech stated he measured it and it was a 34, not a 30..though Gruen has it listed as a 30. I am investigating having a 5/high C made with fanned frets..going from a 34.5 to maybe a 32 or 31..I play finger style, and like the space..

btw, your book looks interesting..
 
#12
Once, several years ago in the Boston Guitar Center, someone was selling a Bass-V that had been converted to a 6-string with a clever but obvious bit of woodwork (namely adding a section onto the fingerboard to widen it), and even with that, it only had the range of an average 5-string :rolleyes:
 
#17
johnp352 said:
..outside the 15 fret decision..I like the idea a lot..a 5 with a "high C"..

btw your book looks interesting..
Click to expand...

For 1965, it really was a clever twist (i.e., before people started putting 6, 7, etc. strings on a bass so they could move across rather than up and down).

Global Electronic Commerce was my best selling book, though now is hopelessly out of date. But we had a good run with it for about 2 years, particularly for a 'niche' market book.
 

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