I sure would appreciate any help you can give identifying this cool bass guitar I just picked up. I have not touched it and everything appears to be original.
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Can anyone tell me what I have found?
- Thread starter EMIAH
- Start date
Looks like an overseas copy of an early BC Rich. Unusual.
I have not even tried it yet. Unless someone tells me I would ruin it, because it has some hidden value as is, I will do a complete refurbishment on it, and then try and move it on.
Looks like a BC Rich copy with chicken pox. 
I don't think that is anything collectible. It's a cool looking handle. Have fun and post pics when you are done.
Cool find, I love it! The ashtray is typical for the cheaper Japanese knock-offs, hiding the fact that the bridge is a bent plate of the cheapest variety, as opposed to the high mass bridge on the original. I've seen it on a lot of Japanese basses from the 60s up to the 80s, even ones where the ashtray clearly didn't belong. Like this one.
This is most likely (most definitely) not a high quality instrument from Matsumoku or Fujigen or the likes, but the neck and body may still be decent or even quite good, as long as the neck is straight and the trussrod works. The bridge is probably garbage, the tuners too, electronics may be cool, weird or crap, or even a combo of all three. I suspect the pickups are cheap guitar pickups, probably the same they would fit in the inevitable Les Paul copy made at the same factory. The frets will often be crude, worn and displaced, but may also be good (enough). Nut looks like worn out plastic. The attention to detail in these instruments is not the highest. The brown inlays look slightly weird?
I would probably look for new pickups, a cool bridge, possibly new tuners, chuck out the ashtray, but keep the rest as is, more or less. The lightning logo looks oddly cool!
This is most likely (most definitely) not a high quality instrument from Matsumoku or Fujigen or the likes, but the neck and body may still be decent or even quite good, as long as the neck is straight and the trussrod works. The bridge is probably garbage, the tuners too, electronics may be cool, weird or crap, or even a combo of all three. I suspect the pickups are cheap guitar pickups, probably the same they would fit in the inevitable Les Paul copy made at the same factory. The frets will often be crude, worn and displaced, but may also be good (enough). Nut looks like worn out plastic. The attention to detail in these instruments is not the highest. The brown inlays look slightly weird?
I would probably look for new pickups, a cool bridge, possibly new tuners, chuck out the ashtray, but keep the rest as is, more or less. The lightning logo looks oddly cool!
And this:
This one tries to give the appearance of a neck-through with the painted stripes on the front, but is clearly a bolt-on. I've never really seen any Korean instruments from that period (I always assumed they didn't really get into that game until the late 80s). Good info.
so do I... I'll post pics tomorrow, after I start to work on it.I want to know what's under the extra cavity covers
I am completely stumped. It almost looks like someone fitted a poor-quality bass neck to a mockingbird body. I hope there are some identifying marks somewhere or this is going to drive me insane.
Those type of tuners that I have seen have been on Japanese or Korean models. It's entirely possible the neck and body were not born together.
I wonder if those dots are drawn on top of the finish. You may be able to polish them off.
The dots are under the finish. Does anyone have any idea about the headstock design??? I have never seen it before. Also, the orange blocks along with the red and green dots on the fret board are something I have never seen. The neck appears to be original, but I'll know more tomorrow when I start to work on it, unless someone here tells me not to mess with it until I can find out what it is. Thanks for all your comments and help!
I've never seen one of those. You could try posting on the Original Vintage Japanese Guitar Fanclub on FB.
I don't worry too much about upgrading old MIJ instruments. Keep the original parts to include if you sell it later.
