• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

1962 Jazz $20K on the bay

#61
For those who feel that nothing like this could possibly be counterfeit - consider that paintings from dozens of the world's greatest masters have fooled the foremost art experts over and over.

The science is getting better at discovering them - but the couterfeiters are getting better too.

Watches, money, paintings, handbags, guitars, and just about anything with significent value is being copied. And the Chinese are becoming very good at producing them.

I wouldn't just throw 10's of thousands of dollars at something unless I knew 100% it was the real thing.
 
#62
Hard to think that bass is 100% stock w/original finish and it looks that good. I'm as old as that bass as well as allot of things and none of us or those things look half that good after 50 years :(
 
#63
john_martin_sai said:
For those who feel that nothing like this could possibly be counterfeit - consider that paintings from dozens of the world's greatest masters have fooled the foremost art experts over and over.

The science is getting better at discovering them - but the couterfeiters are getting better too.

Watches, money, paintings, handbags, guitars, and just about anything with significent value is being copied. And the Chinese are becoming very good at producing them.

I wouldn't just throw 10's of thousands of dollars at something unless I knew 100% it was the real thing.
Click to expand...

Fortunately Pre-CBS Fender guitars (and Les Pauls, etc) have historically been pulling in 2-3 times the amount similar basses have been, and I would bet there are lot more counterfeit copies of them than basses, as the prices are higher and demand greater. This has probably made buying a bass less risky, but since prices started climbing over the last 20 years, who knows?
 
#65
johnk_10 said:
while they are definitely some out there, it's actually very difficult to make a counterfeit one that is exactly like the vintage ones, and it's not cheap to do it.
Click to expand...

+1 I've seen more than a few counterfeits and they all have tell-tale signs; just depends on how much you know. For one that knows it all (or close to it), would have no problem with something like this.

The vast majority of counterfeiters fake it fast and cheap. And that's in any market - not just instruments.
 
#66
john_martin_sai said:
For those who feel that nothing like this could possibly be counterfeit - consider that paintings from dozens of the world's greatest masters have fooled the foremost art experts over and over.

The science is getting better at discovering them - but the couterfeiters are getting better too.

Watches, money, paintings, handbags, guitars, and just about anything with significent value is being copied. And the Chinese are becoming very good at producing them.

I wouldn't just throw 10's of thousands of dollars at something unless I knew 100% it was the real thing.
Click to expand...

1.) paintings aren't made on assembly lines. They are normally one-of-a-kind so there's no ID signs. For guitars, the opposite is true.

2.) I'm not sure how your comment relates to counterfeiting if you're talking about the world's greatest painters. Then that wouldn't be counterfeiting, correct? You're talking about something else entirely (I assume da Vinci's purported hidden messages in Mona Lisa sorts of stuff). Until they start finding hidden messages and photographic images in the finish of pre-CBS basses (hamburgler?) then your comment does not apply.

3.) No, the Chinese absolutely suck at forging Fenders. And no, the Chinese are NOT reproducing vintage Fenders. Americans, Japanese, and Europeans are, mostly. But I digress. Nobody said counterfeits don't exist.

4.) I don't think anyone would throw 10's of $k's at anything. Nobody is advocating that. Merely saying that it's alot easier than people think to ID a mass-produced instrument - if you have the knowledge.
 
#67
michael_atw said:
+1 I've seen more than a few counterfeits and they all have tell-tale signs; just depends on how much you know. For one that knows it all (or close to it), would have no problem with something like this.

The vast majority of counterfeiters fake it fast and cheap. And that's in any market - not just instruments.
Click to expand...

Well, the ones with tell-tale signs are simply bad ones. The better they get the harder they are to rumble. Obviously only the ones you have recognized as counterfeits are what you are talking about here- if it was a better made one and it fooled you, you wouldn't be calling it a counterfeit, would you?

Any dealer worth his salt will tell you (if he is being honest with you) that he couldn't tell a good counterfeit from the real thing without holding it in his hand, and then a very good one is often only rumbled by the tiniest detail, or sometimes by an effort at reproducing too many 'tell-tale' details on the same instrument, etc. Many of the best and most experienced dealers have related coming across instruments that they knew to be counterfeits but which they themselves could not discern.

I agree it is expensive and difficult, but to argue that it is impossible and that no counterfeit will convince an experienced dealer is a complete nonsense and has been proven to be so by previous documented examples. I guarantee there are fake instruments out there that have been bought, sold, and bought again with no one the wiser.

Where years ago very few people had the experience, the internet has brought a lot of information previously available only first-hand into the public domain, and made counterfeiting easier. It's really not that hard if you have the experience, the tools, and the desire to either copy an instrument as a tribute, or to copy one to sell on as a counterfeit.

I'm not making this stuff up; I've had some very interesting talks with dealers about this situation. It's an old one and goes back literally thousands of years and involves every single type of object whose value is based on rarity. There is very little that cannot be copied, and copied well, and as long as there is money to be made someone will try it on.
 
#69
michael_atw said:
1.) paintings aren't made on assembly lines. They are normally one-of-a-kind so there's no ID signs. For guitars, the opposite is true.

2.) I'm not sure how your comment relates to counterfeiting if you're talking about the world's greatest painters. Then that wouldn't be counterfeiting, correct? You're talking about something else entirely (I assume da Vinci's purported hidden messages in Mona Lisa sorts of stuff). Until they start finding hidden messages and photographic images in the finish of pre-CBS basses (hamburgler?) then your comment does not apply.

3.) No, the Chinese absolutely suck at forging Fenders. And no, the Chinese are NOT reproducing vintage Fenders. Americans, Japanese, and Europeans are, mostly. But I digress. Nobody said counterfeits don't exist.

4.) I don't think anyone would throw 10's of $k's at anything. Nobody is advocating that. Merely saying that it's alot easier than people think to ID a mass-produced instrument - if you have the knowledge.
Click to expand...

Paintings have been counterfeited by copying paintings known to have existed but since lost, or original paintings have been made using styles, materials, and techniques known to have been used by a specific painter or school at a given time. Auction houses are constantly fooled and rumbled, and there is a great probability a percentage of famous paintings hanging in Museums and private collections are indeed forgeries. There are many ways to ID a painting.

Vintage Fenders are one-of-a-kind instruments, much more so than today's.

I agree the Chinese are probably not the ones making perfect copies of vintage Fenders at the moment, but what does that have to do with the topic? They exist and are out there as we speak.
 
#71
One Drop said:
\Auction houses are constantly fooled and rumbled, and there is a great probability a percentage of famous paintings hanging in Museums and private collections are indeed forgeries. There are many ways to ID a painting.

Vintage Fenders are one-of-a-kind instruments, much more so than today's.

I agree the Chinese are probably not the ones making perfect copies of vintage Fenders at the moment, but what does that have to do with the topic? They exist and are out there as we speak.
Click to expand...

First off, I was addressing the other person's comment. He talked about Chinese fakes. Please follow along;)

Second, vintage Fenders are absolutely not one-of-a-kind. Are you kidding me? :rollno: Then and now, they are "assembly line" produced. Although they hand-wound pickups back then and made intimate details, they were still mass produced.

And, I'll do the same thing you did to me. If auction houses can ID them (because there are many ways to ID a painting), then how are experts being fooled?


Comparing paintings to guitars is absolutely silly.
 
#73
michael_atw said:
Second, vintage Fenders are absolutely not one-of-a-kind. Are you kidding me? :rollno: Then and now, they are "assembly line" produced. Although they hand-wound pickups back then and made intimate details, they were still mass produced.
.
Click to expand...

Pre CBS, there weren't exacty an army of employees at fender cranking out thousands of basses per day. I wouldn't refer to them as being mass produced as the term meant something a lot different then as it means now.
 
#74
One Drop said:
Well, the ones with tell-tale signs are simply bad ones. The better they get the harder they are to rumble. Obviously only the ones you have recognized as counterfeits are what you are talking about here- if it was a better made one and it fooled you, you wouldn't be calling it a counterfeit, would you?

Any dealer worth his salt will tell you (if he is being honest with you) that he couldn't tell a good counterfeit from the real thing without holding it in his hand, and then a very good one is often only rumbled by the tiniest detail, or sometimes by an effort at reproducing too many 'tell-tale' details on the same instrument, etc. Many of the best and most experienced dealers have related coming across instruments that they knew to be counterfeits but which they themselves could not discern.

I agree it is expensive and difficult, but to argue that it is impossible and that no counterfeit will convince an experienced dealer is a complete nonsense and has been proven to be so by previous documented examples. I guarantee there are fake instruments out there that have been bought, sold, and bought again with no one the wiser.

Where years ago very few people had the experience, the internet has brought a lot of information previously available only first-hand into the public domain, and made counterfeiting easier. It's really not that hard if you have the experience, the tools, and the desire to either copy an instrument as a tribute, or to copy one to sell on as a counterfeit.

I'm not making this stuff up; I've had some very interesting talks with dealers about this situation. It's an old one and goes back literally thousands of years and involves every single type of object whose value is based on rarity. There is very little that cannot be copied, and copied well, and as long as there is money to be made someone will try it on.
Click to expand...

1.) You still don't understand. Fender guitars are mass produced. Have been, always will be. Period. That means, there are dozens of factors that can be used to easily authenticate or debunk them. Not like a painting, where it is unique to a sole artist with a sole creative sense and style unique to him/her - who has been possibly dead in some cases for hundreds of years. Apples to oranges.

Once again, never said that all experts could authenticate all Fenders throughout all history. Also never said that counterfeits don't exist under the radar that cannot be "debunked". Merely said the chances of this specific instrument being a fake are very slim - and the chances that a collector/expert of epic proportions isn't buying it is zero. $30k slims down the playing field, folks.
 
#75
parsons said:
Pre CBS, there weren't exacty an army of employees at fender cranking out thousands of basses per day. I wouldn't refer to them as being mass produced as the term meant something a lot different then as it means now.
Click to expand...

"Mass Production involves making many copies of products, very quickly, using assembly line techniques to send partially complete products to workers who each work on an individual step, rather than having a worker work on a whole product from start to finish."

The definition has not changed. Fender absolutely was and is "mass production". Mass production is not defined by quantity but by the system they are created. Standardization was my point - that Leo Fender modeled his factory after Henry Ford and standardized the process with which they were created.

The definition did not change - just the subjective perception by yourself of the definition.:)
 
#78
michael_atw said:
First off, I was addressing the other person's comment. He talked about Chinese fakes. Please follow along;)

Second, vintage Fenders are absolutely not one-of-a-kind. Are you kidding me? :rollno: Then and now, they are "assembly line" produced. Although they hand-wound pickups back then and made intimate details, they were still mass produced.

And, I'll do the same thing you did to me. If auction houses can ID them (because there are many ways to ID a painting), then how are experts being fooled?


Comparing paintings to guitars is absolutely silly.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's silly, I think it's relevant.

Anyway, if you knew how old Fenders were made, you'd realize that many of the operations performed today on CNC operated complex machines were performed by hand on much simpler machines, usually hand guided. Much of the shaping, routing, and finishing varied much more from instrument to instrument than it does today, and the although they were mass produced, in many ways they are closer to what artisanal and boutique luthiers put out these days. What any of this has to do with the subject is beyond me, but I'm addressing your argument here anyway, in the sense of 'keeping up'. Copying a mass produced or a one off object takes the same skill and knowledge, I'm not getting what the relevance is in the first place.

In the art world, often paintings and sculptures are only discovered as being fakes when someone is arrested and the fraud comes to light, or when one is finally rumbled by an expert with new knowledge or who doesn't have a vested interest in the fakes remaining undetected. This happens all the time, and it often throws into doubt whole collections, and reputations made over decades.

It's not surprising that dealers are often the ones who make or commission the best fakes- they have the knowledge, experience, and the networks to make it possible. Do some research and it will scare the heck out of you, I promise!
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back