Crack in body / advice needed / Stingray FL

[fastolf]

Hi,
There's a music man stingray in the local classifieds here in Switzerland, and it has a visible crack. It's quite far to drive to see it so I'm curious if the TB community can share some wisdom and experience to help me find out how serious of an issue it is. The main question is whether it's a surface crack in the lacquer (not affecting the resonance of the body) or rather a deep structural problem that penetrates the body or the instrument.

The seller claims he bought it like that 30 years ago and that the bass sounds great. I've been looking for a fretless Sting for a while and this one is a 2EQ...

Grateful for any hints!

Thanks and greetings from Switzerland!

B

 

[96tbird]

The crack runs from the battery box around to the bridge. You should unscrew the battery box and look at the wood. If it’s split, you’ll probably be able to see it.

Since it’s such a long crack, yet it remains a small gap that hasn’t seemed to widen over time, my guess is it’s only the hard poly finish that cracked.

I live in Canada so it’s funny to me that any drive within Switzerland is “long”. lol. I commute 100km a day.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

To me that looks like it's cracked along the grain, perhaps an ash or maple body?
That looks like it happened a long time ago, my guess is it got dropped at some point.
I agree it just looks like a finish injury, I would use it as a negotiating tactic.
That could also be caused by expansion and contraction of the body wood.
Hot/Cold, Humid/Dry.

 

[eniac]

Cracks like that, I like to probe around inside it with a thin automotive feeler gauge to get an idea of how deep it goes. But since you can't see it in person, you might want to make sure you have the right to return the instrument for a full refund if you find the crack runs down into the body itself. If you do buy the instrument, have a video camera running while you unbox it, as a silent witness to the crack either having remained stable, or having gotten worse as a result of rough handling during shipment.

 

[Geogio]

Might be a poly crack. I had a Jackson which did that and a big chunk of poly seperated from the body... the underlying wood looked fine. It was as if the body was dipped not sprayed.