american standard & kay

Both get points from their adherents for being American made and tough to kill. I have a 1953 Kay C-1 that was going to be my outdoors/ festival bass. The neck work is almost complete on it, but I'm going to sell it off as soon as it's done. I happened on to a rockabilly-ed American Standard that eats the Kay for breakfast. With the longer string length and larger top surface, the American Standard makes a much bigger sound than Kay basses with less effort. The American Standard is getting a replacement ebony board because the original one made of mystery reddish hardwood has been planed down to nothing and there were lovely hacksawn "fret lines" put into the surface by the same rockabilly dude that painted it a very ugly transluscent black. My own money goes with an American Standard over a Kay every single time. They are pretty hard to find out here in the west. I've only had two of them ever.

 

That mystery hardwood would be rosewood.

 

This red hardwood is a very bright red-orange cinnamon color with none of Brazilian Rosewood's characteristic smell or grain pattern. I can't figure out what it is. I have used and dealt with Brazilian Rosewood for over two decades. This old fingerboard will be kindling for my next campfire in a few days.

 

If you'd like more history and info on Kay:

www.kaybass.com

and american standard:

www.hnwhite.com

Lots of good reading on both sites.

By the way, I've never seen or heard of any "Rockabilly" bass players sawing fret lines into a bass, until now - and I've seen alot of Rockabilly basses and players. That guy was most certainly an idiot, regardless of his musical leanings.

 

The roughly sawn "fret lines" had wood dough put in for white lines. The body and neck finish is a sloppily painted transluscent black, maybe polyurethane, for an evil rockabilly look. Nice work!

I bought this treasure for $700.00 and put another $800.00 in it. I can't wait to pick it up later this week. I sure wish that there were more American Standard and King Moretone basses in california. They really flip my switch much more than the many Kay basses that seem to have been standard issure for most of the California public school systems in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

Aw come on Steve, we need some pix of that fingerboard. Inquiring minds want to know!

 

I would sell a kidney to get my hands on a nice American Standard. My absolute favorite of the old American ply basses.

 

Perhaps a species of hardwood that attached itself to the roots of a host Brazilian tree. Or red oak, paduak, ect. Or the wood seller filled out the pallet of rosewood with some other lumber, like putting rocks in rice sacks.

In any case, it did the job up until now!

 

...there is one down in the classified ads

 

There's one down here FS at Gruhn's Guitars very similar to mine. Early fifties, very clean, price 'down' from 4500 to 3850. A very clean Epi B4 also. A lot of price reductions and a bunch of nice old Fenders. Economy's hittin'. http://gruhn.com/

Ike

 

Maybe I should have said "I would need to sell one of my kidneys to afford one right now".

I am one of the rising tide of unemployed Amercians at the moment, but I can still dream.

 

Thanks to Matt Bohn (The Bass Doctor), the new ebony board is on the rockabilly-ed American Standard. The bass has been transformed. I now have a great outdoor and festival bass. I had a car full of guitar wood and 3 Santa Cruz guitars, so I didn't even ask him if I could have the crappy old mystery wood fingerboard. Maybe Matt will read this and post a photo of that forlorn little red thing.

 

I second the picture request!