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Bass found in the trash
- Thread starter GARGOIL
- Start date
Amazing what people throw away! I have found cool stuff on trash day before but never a bass. My mom was the lucky one to find it for me. It can happen.
I have a D-tuner missing a bass??? 
You don't know where I might be able to find one do you??? 
LMAO I have storms trooper all across the galaxy looking for the missing "rebel" bass.
Enjoy your find
You don't know where I might be able to find one do you??? LMAO I have storms trooper all across the galaxy looking for the missing "rebel" bass.Enjoy your find
It's amazing what people throw in the trash!
I'm a bit of a packrat and on the various trash days/nights in the city and the burbs I'm always on the lookout. I used to dumpster dive
through the bins of a couple of local music stores too. Believe it or not,depending on the local or state laws, you can get into some trouble for doing that nowdays. I've found many cool things over the years.
Recent finds over the last couple of years have been:
A Hondo 830 model P bass copy. All it needed was a ring for the front of the headstock D tuner and an output Jack. Plays & sounds great!
A Hofner classical acoustic. Probably from the late 50's. Only needed tuning gears.
A late 60's Silvertone 100 watt solid state bass head. Needed a fuse & fuse holder. Works fine.
A 70's Fender silverface Champ amp with no tubes or speaker.Retubed it (Champ's are easy! You don't have to bias them or anything) & got an Eminence speaker for it. It sounds great!
Many old violins & brass instruments.
A 1920's Gibson uke.
I can't begin to tell you how many vinyl records,turntables,old radios & stereo stuff I've found.
People do check the Internet & Ebay before they throw stuff out now so neat things don't turn up like they used to but seek and you will find.
You will be very,very surprised!
With the advent of the Internet & Ebay stuff isn't as easy to find as it used to be
I'm a bit of a packrat and on the various trash days/nights in the city and the burbs I'm always on the lookout. I used to dumpster dive
through the bins of a couple of local music stores too. Believe it or not,depending on the local or state laws, you can get into some trouble for doing that nowdays. I've found many cool things over the years.
Recent finds over the last couple of years have been:
A Hondo 830 model P bass copy. All it needed was a ring for the front of the headstock D tuner and an output Jack. Plays & sounds great!
A Hofner classical acoustic. Probably from the late 50's. Only needed tuning gears.
A late 60's Silvertone 100 watt solid state bass head. Needed a fuse & fuse holder. Works fine.
A 70's Fender silverface Champ amp with no tubes or speaker.Retubed it (Champ's are easy! You don't have to bias them or anything) & got an Eminence speaker for it. It sounds great!
Many old violins & brass instruments.
A 1920's Gibson uke.
I can't begin to tell you how many vinyl records,turntables,old radios & stereo stuff I've found.
People do check the Internet & Ebay before they throw stuff out now so neat things don't turn up like they used to but seek and you will find.
You will be very,very surprised!
With the advent of the Internet & Ebay stuff isn't as easy to find as it used to be
Its funny it being a gibson EB style bass too cause they are clearly love em or hate em type instruments,... and someone obviously hated this one. have you bothered to cast an eye down the neck see if its straight? if the neck is screwed you will end up with badlands up on the higher frets.
I found a clean entry level takamine steel string acoustic in a dumpster years ago, I think someone must have moved out of a house rather quickly and chucked their stuff in a bin behind a supermarket. I gave it to a friend recently. Me and a mate found also 2 guitars in a hard rubbish pile, one was real rubbish the other i kept its a nylon string but unique looking (its a "barclay" which i cant find any info on) has like a little half fret that wraps around the bottom of the soundhole which looks cool, i swapped the tuners out and installed a bridge piece which is actually tent peg I cut to size! The only other musical instrument i've saved from hard rubbish is a piano accordian.
But you are right its crazy what people throw out sometime.
I found a clean entry level takamine steel string acoustic in a dumpster years ago, I think someone must have moved out of a house rather quickly and chucked their stuff in a bin behind a supermarket. I gave it to a friend recently. Me and a mate found also 2 guitars in a hard rubbish pile, one was real rubbish the other i kept its a nylon string but unique looking (its a "barclay" which i cant find any info on) has like a little half fret that wraps around the bottom of the soundhole which looks cool, i swapped the tuners out and installed a bridge piece which is actually tent peg I cut to size! The only other musical instrument i've saved from hard rubbish is a piano accordian.
But you are right its crazy what people throw out sometime.
yeah thats some nice scores, a lot of the people wouldn't believe you but i don't doubt it at all. hard rubbish is good sometimes, especially good for old school push bikes...
yeah it was liquorland dumpster the question is why was i knee deep in a liquorland dumpster in the first place? mmm...
A lot of people don't believe me but my partime job is working for a store that sells instruments and vinyl records so we're always on the lookout.Granted some of the neighborhoods can be pretty gnarly but that's where a lot of good stuff turns up.
We live in a disposable world. People would rather throw things away then repair something.In my neighborhood there's a lot of older people moving out & lots of garage sales.Maybe their kids fooled around with music for a while & had stuff. If it didn't move at the garage sale,it'll be in the trash a week later. I always find practice amps in the trash.9 out of 10 don't work & those low level solid state amps are not worth spending $35 - 50 to repair.Pedals,too. Don't think I ever found a working pedal I trashpicked
I'm sure I posted this before but Ibanez's US distribution is not far away from me.I knew guys who would dumpster dive there and score the bottom of the line acoustics & electrics. Most of them only had nasty finish flaws.Someone was supposed to destroy them before trashing them but I guess someone got lazy. It would probably cost more to have a luthier/repair person fix them then the wholesale price of the
instruments.
I've been trashpickin' for many years.Last week somebody chucked out a box of old 78 rpm records.Most of it was worthless but there a copy of Boogie Disease by Dr.Ross on Sun & a Bessie Smith on Columbia.Most
people wouldn't know about the Dr.Ross being a very rare record.
We live in a disposable world. People would rather throw things away then repair something.In my neighborhood there's a lot of older people moving out & lots of garage sales.Maybe their kids fooled around with music for a while & had stuff. If it didn't move at the garage sale,it'll be in the trash a week later. I always find practice amps in the trash.9 out of 10 don't work & those low level solid state amps are not worth spending $35 - 50 to repair.Pedals,too. Don't think I ever found a working pedal I trashpicked
I'm sure I posted this before but Ibanez's US distribution is not far away from me.I knew guys who would dumpster dive there and score the bottom of the line acoustics & electrics. Most of them only had nasty finish flaws.Someone was supposed to destroy them before trashing them but I guess someone got lazy. It would probably cost more to have a luthier/repair person fix them then the wholesale price of the
instruments.
I've been trashpickin' for many years.Last week somebody chucked out a box of old 78 rpm records.Most of it was worthless but there a copy of Boogie Disease by Dr.Ross on Sun & a Bessie Smith on Columbia.Most
people wouldn't know about the Dr.Ross being a very rare record.
I'd grab anything musical out of the trash. I wouldn't care what kind of guitar, or what brand..if i can take it and make it play im happy even if it's a POS
Guy finishes gig at club. Several bands are playing that night. While he is packing his gear, his hot girlfriend says,
"Hey, look, you were good for a few laughs, but the dude over there, the one with the Ric, man, his tone kills your POS Gibson, so, it's over. Leaving with him. Here are your car keys."
Guy is stunned.
He stands there, looking at his Gibson bass, and walks out behind the club and tosses it in the dumpster. The guy kicks the dumpster and breaks his big toe. He hobbles home to lick his wounds.
The bass is never recovered; but then, our salvage guy's mom finds it, and "voila", new bass.
Makes sense to me....
"Hey, look, you were good for a few laughs, but the dude over there, the one with the Ric, man, his tone kills your POS Gibson, so, it's over. Leaving with him. Here are your car keys."
Guy is stunned.
He stands there, looking at his Gibson bass, and walks out behind the club and tosses it in the dumpster. The guy kicks the dumpster and breaks his big toe. He hobbles home to lick his wounds.
The bass is never recovered; but then, our salvage guy's mom finds it, and "voila", new bass.
Makes sense to me....
wow! that's a pretty nice trash bass! I'd expect to find an Ibanez or something (which I've found, and later donated) but that thing has some SERIOUS cool potential!
There's players & collectors gunning for those 60/70s Japanese copies.It's not uncommon to see dealers charging $250 for stuff like that.Sometimes more.
That's a nice score!
That's a nice score!
at first, I thought your post said "Bassist found in trash"...
My first reaction was "Wait! That was YEARS ago! Why bring that up NOW?!?!"
My first reaction was "Wait! That was YEARS ago! Why bring that up NOW?!?!"
Gosh these tunning machines are expensive online. To bad the music store that sells these kinds of items is being remodeled and wont reopen till??? anybody got any ideas on how to clean the bridge. At first i thought sand blast.
Disassemble and hit it with Scotchbrite for a nice brushed look. Keep your pattern in one direction.
Lucky, lucky, lucky man. Keep us posted, I wanna see how yours turned out. I've a similar copy at home waiting for a refin.
Man, found in the trash basses are the best! I have one you guys won't believe: I used to work with a guy, he comes in one day with a beat up p-bass, it's been routed out to hold this big homemade copper shielding unit, the horns had been cut deeper into the body, the original electronics were long gone and it had a couple of cream colored Gibson pickups in it. Neck is in good shape, but clearly old, and the face of the familiar looking headstock has been painted with the same grey primer that adorned the now mangled body. He says he's looking to sell it, so I offered him $50, which he accepts. I knew it was a Fender; but I thought maybe a MIM. I figure it would be fun to mess around with, maybe a cool project bass. I get home and take the neck off, it's stamped 5SEP65C. Yes folks, a 1965 Fender Precision. Beat up, yes; altered, for sure. But man, I couldn't believe it! At that point I didn't have the heart to mangle it any more than it had already been, and turned out the restoration was a more expensive project than I could handle, so I parted it out and sold it on e-bay. Here's what I got for the various pieces:
Body + shielding unit - $276
Neck - $692
Gibson humbuckers (turned out to be 2 low impedance pickups from 70's era Gibson Les Paul Signature basses, who knew?!?) $424
Serial number plate and screws (L70027) - $220
Original reverse style Fender tuners & string "T" w/screws - $220
For a grand total of $1832!!! Easiset money I ever made. And definately my "score of a lifetime" story!
Hey, you might have parted out one of Jamerson's lost basses. Didn't he have 2 stolen. Woulda made sense to disfigure and then later trash it if it was hot.
Wasn't his a 65'? (His had a chip broken off just above the top screw on the pickguard.)
Great, hope you got some parts laying around that might get 'er playing. Mom is well trained, and cares for her young.
Anyone started a thread yet to pay-it-forward on unwanted gear? These can work, though some are better at takin' than givin', human nature!
Anyone started a thread yet to pay-it-forward on unwanted gear? These can work, though some are better at takin' than givin', human nature!
I found a mint condition Westbury (japanese) guitar and case in the trash coming home from rehearsal one night.
Very nice little 6 string.
I listed it on a forum and a guy who colelcts them gave me 350 cash- couldnt give it to me fast enough! Maybe it was worth more, but I was pretty happy with my take on the deal.
Trash can = treasure... cool bass man.
as an aside, as kid I was fined for "trash picking", which is illegal in some towns. The official law was "scavenging without a permit". For real. About 8 of us got nailed collecting old christmas trees one night... long story.
Anyway, cool find!
Very nice little 6 string.
I listed it on a forum and a guy who colelcts them gave me 350 cash- couldnt give it to me fast enough! Maybe it was worth more, but I was pretty happy with my take on the deal.
Trash can = treasure... cool bass man.
as an aside, as kid I was fined for "trash picking", which is illegal in some towns. The official law was "scavenging without a permit". For real. About 8 of us got nailed collecting old christmas trees one night... long story.
Anyway, cool find!
