Double Bass Broken Bass

[jedjr]

I have a 1936 a Oskar C. Meinel bass with many flaws. With new strings and lots of gluing and clamping, my instrument doctor wants $400. Is this fair? Is it worth to drag this dinosaur out of retirement? It feels like it is circling the drain...

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

They want to give you $400 for the bass? If its an unplayable train wreck, that might not be too far out of line. Without knowing anything about your bass it's impossible for us in the outside world to tell.

 

[jedjr]

They want $400 to put new strings and a new bridge on. They want $1500 to put it back into pristine shape. It is playable now, however. Are you familiar with the Oskar C. Meinel company? I thought they were mostly in violins.

 

[eh_train]

Four hundred for new strings, a new bridge, and some gluing sounds pretty reasonable (assuming they're decent strings).

Do you have pics, or a better description of what the more extensive repairs might be? If it's an older carved bass, $1500 to get it back into good shape might be well worth while. If it's ply, not so much...

Cheers,

Paul